JAMES LILLIN
Staff Writer
Food vendors on the Fredonia campus are currently in a transitory period, with operating hours experiencing an across-the-board cut to combat the falling enrollment of past years. Returning students are particularly irate when it comes to the changes to Tim Hortons, which in past years was open until 9 p.m. but now closes at 5 p.m.
“In the four years I’ve been at school, I went to Tim’s to get dinner like every day before rehearsal,” said senior musical theatre major Jeff Kringer, “and it was a nice place to go and sit and do work. It’s been my place since freshman year, and I’m just really disappointed.”
Incoming freshmen are more ambivalent about the changes, but word has gotten around about the previous hours.
“The food at Fredonia really isn’t as bad as I thought it’d be,” said freshman musical theatre major Jong Sang Rheu, “but the cafes close really early, and the food is pretty Americanized. Their ‘Asian’ option at Crannies is rice. Just, like, rice. I mean, what’s up with that?”
After 14 straight years of growth from 1998- 2012, Fredonia has been struggling to work with the new reality of its student base, which has meant some shrinking-pains for FSA.
“We were a lot larger back in 2011,” said FSA Executive Director Darin Schulz, “although we’re now looking at a growth period again, which is wonderful. Our first priority is to make sure that our customers are satisfied to the highest level that we can achieve, but we also have to pay bills, payroll, expenses and we have a limited revenue to do that.”
Although Fredonia is currently welcoming in its second-largest freshman class in the campus’ history, a trend that Schulz hopes will continue, FSA still needs to work with the number of students that it has now.
“From 1998 to 2012 we became significantly larger than they were, and our footprint got very large,” said Schulz.
“It’s not appropriate to just pass that cost down to the students, so it’s important we have a very wise approach to re-expanding. We’re going to look carefully at each class that comes in and address our services accordingly.”
FSA could have kept its previous hours, but it would have required an increase in meal plan price, a price which, for the first time in 30 years, has not gone up from the previous year.
“Our goal was to impact the fewest number of customers,” said Schulz. “We could have kept hours the same, but it would have necessitated a pretty sizable meal plan increase. We lowered room rates in residential housing and wanted to keep the cost of education affordable for students, and so keeping the meal plan cost flat was important to us.”
Schulz has been listening to student feedback about the new hours and is trying to be flexible in addressing complaints, with Mason’s café hours recently extended back to 5 p.m.
“Some music students spend their entire day in Mason,” said Schulz, “especially when they reach upper-class status and don’t venture out very often because of practice and studio requirements, and we’re listening to their needs.”
Most of the hourly changes were made by opening later and closing earlier, which Schulz says were the least utilized hours of most of the dining facilities, although more drastic changes were considered.
“One board was looking at eliminating Cafe Fenton completely and keeping the rest of the hours the same,” said Schulz. “We didn’t like that idea, and decided to go back to the drawing board.”
With Fredonia’s enrollment looking to climb in coming years, however, many students have been wondering about the future of Erie Hall, the vacant building in the quad which was once a dining hall that was home to “Cheesy Fridays.”
“Erie Hall has been getting talked about a lot,” said Schulz. “Erie is in a state of availability for whatever the university may need it for. The kitchen is still intact and remains as an emergency kitchen facility in case something happens in Centre Pointe or Cranston Marche. We’re pursuing plans for ‘what could this be in the future’ Bill that would protect students from additional fees is likely to pass and I wish I could comment more, but there really is nothing concrete to report on.”
The FSA committee consists of 15 members, seven of which are students, but in order to continue to solicit feedback and improve, Schulz is looking for students to help him form a new, separate committee.
“I want to have a food services advisory committee,” said Schulz. “I’d love to have 10 to 12 students meeting a few times a year. The only way we can improve is to get honest one-on-one feedback, and I want to hear students’ thoughts on how we can do better.”
Students who are interested in joining the advisory committee, or who have any questions or comments related to FSA, are encouraged to email Schulz at darin.schulz@ fredonia.edu