Renovations make dining halls more appetizing
Dining areas serving the Brush Towers and University Park residence halls have been de-institutionalized.
"We knew we needed to do something to warm it up," said Edward L. Jones, director of University Housing. "We come in here all the time to eat with the students. If we weren't excited about it, we knew the students weren't excited about it."
The residence hall complexes were built in the 1960s. While small improvements have been made over the years, the 400-seat dining areas of Grinnell and Trueblood halls remained essentially unchanged until this year. Lights, ceilings, walls and floors have new coverings and colors, and new fixtures have been installed -- all designed to add warmth and eliminate the institutional feel of the rooms.
"We needed to do something so students would want to stay here and interact," Jones said.
"It looked like an airplane hangar," chimed in Peggy L. Corley, associate director of housing for residence halls dining, in reference to Grinnell Hall's dining area. It now features an Egyptian motif in keeping with Southern Illinois' "Little Egypt" nickname.
In the Trueblood Hall dining area, in addition to the new lighting and color scheme, part of the ceiling has been dropped and awnings have been installed to create more warmth and an "uptown" feel. Both dining areas are fully carpeted -- a first in the history of the buildings. The carpeting has been installed in squares that can be pulled up, cleaned and re-installed.
The remodeling in Grinnell cost $150,000, while the price tag for Trueblood was $180,000.
"At university dining areas all over the country, it's renovate, renovate, renovate," Corley said. "The trend is to make the dining areas more like restaurants. We want to make students as comfortable as possible."
She also underscores ongoing efforts to meet the dietary needs of students.
"We have a lot of students with allergies, a lot of students who are on modified diets," said Corley, a registered dietitian. "We'll bend over backwards to work with them, a lot more than people realize."
Chef William J. Connors recalled a student last year who had a severe allergy to eggs.
"If he ate a French fry cooked in a fryer that had been used for chicken strips coated in an egg batter, he would have gone into anaphylactic shock," Connors said. "We do a lot of one-on-one, meeting with students with special needs, taking them around to all the managers to discuss their situation. For that student last year, we bought Fry Daddy's for him."
Pleasing so many palates is no small undertaking. More than 7,000 people are fed each day of the school year in Grinnell and Trueblood. There are two regular entrées with each meal, as well as a vegetarian entrée and a light entrée. Two vegetables and a starch also are offered.
The dining halls also feature a full deli, three mixed salads, a salad bar "with every possible topping you can want," a pasta bar and display cooking where omelets, chicken, rice and pasta dishes are cooked to the student's liking. Breakfast offerings include a waffle bar and, of course, cereals -- 16 name-brand varieties are available. Lucky Charms is the top choice, followed by Golden Grahams.
"I still hear from parents at times who say Œmy student doesn't have enough options,' " Connors said. "I'll send them a menu, a list of the options, because the options here are really staggering."
"Chef Bill," as Connors is known around campus, is renowned for his omelets. While he's cooking, he uses the opportunity to gather input from the students. And he hears their cynicism and sarcasm.
"I will take any student back into the storage area to see any box of any product they want to see," Connors said. "I've done it, especially when students talk to me about our hamburgers being all soy. Our ground chuck is 80 percent lean."
His biggest challenge is getting students to stop describing what they consume as "dorm food."
"I want to dispel the ideas about the mystery meat, the powdered eggs, the Grade-D beef and Grade-F chicken," he said.
- Tom Woolf
August 29, 2001