Dining waits should decrease as semester continues

Long lines at the Heilman Dining Center and Tyler's Grill have become commonplace this year, but they have primarily resulted from students adjusting to new class schedules, not from the arrival of an unprecedented number of first-year students.

The problem is not permanent and it should sort itself out as the semester goes on, said Dee Hardy, director of food and auxiliary services.

Hardy said she expected peaks of traffic to level off as students developed eating habits based around their class schedules. In the past, students initially did not know the length of time it took to get from one point to another and had to plan their schedules around their classes. Therefore, they cluster around the same times for meals, she said.

The class of 2013 has had a minimal impact on the amount of food needed to serve the university's dining patrons, including students, faculty, and staff and community members.

"The impact is marginal," Hardy said. "Sure, we're cooking a little more, but when you spread 100 people out over the entire student body ... the impact is diluted somewhat for us."

Hardy said the larger scale had helped alleviate potential problems involving food allotments. Food service is most affected when dealing with smaller groups of people. For becomes difficult to accommodate 10 extra people when an event was originally planned for just 50 people, she said.

example, it becomes difficult to accommodate 10 extra people when an event was originally planned for just 50 people, she said.

The dining staff was prepared from day one, and has always had adequate food at the various stations throughout the dining hall. Hardy praised the enthusiasm of the staff and management team, who celebrated the success of their accomplishments.

The dining staff is excited to have more students to feed this year, she said. There aren't any plans to extend service hours, although Hardy said station schedules at the dining hall might shift to accommodate students.

The issues of increased food waste and the possibility of eliminating trays to cut down on waste had been hot topics on campus during the past year. An audit of waste last year found that entirely eliminating trays could save approximately 714 pounds of food per week, according to dining services officials. Presumably, adding a class with record numbers of students would produce more waste, but these new students would create the waste whether they were at Richmond or elsewhere, Hardy said.

One initiative aimed toward decreasing waste was a shift to larger cups in the dining hall, Hardy said. The new cups, which were suggested by the Student Government Associations last year, will require several months of use before it can be determined whether they have helped diminish waste.

This article is the last in a series on the freshmen class.

Contact staff writer Jimmy Young at jimmy.young@richmond.edu