MEL N. KOLICH
Special to the Lampoon
It’s no secret that it is hard to eat healthy on campus. Students dissatisfied with current food options are again wondering why Erie Dining Hall was closed over two years ago as campus food options continue to dwindle.
Flames of the increasingly popular movement to restore Erie Dining Hall were rekindled by the now notorious Change.org petition, which recieved over 500 student signatures in one day.
Head of Campus PR talked to us about the difficulty in dealing with these tough questions — tough questions with even tougher answers.
“Students don’t understand how delicate of a situation this is,” she said. “On one hand, I see why they want the dining hall to reopen. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.”
She explained that Erie drew its powers from a ritual sacrifice to Akkadian fertility goddesses Amasagnul and Ama-arhus over 3,000 years ago, the site of which is the cornerstone of the building’s foundation. The dining hall’s vitality had been in steady decline over the last decade, finally drying out completely in 2012.
She continued, speaking honestly about the logistical problems with reopening. “You can’t just one day decide to reopen, you see. You would need dozens of lambs and calves; you would need to erect a large shrine to Enlil and Anu. You have to wait until the interior planets line up in accordance to the quad. You think those dorm names are arbitrary? You need high priests, fire safety permits. You need fig trees and limestone. You see any of that growing around here? There’s transportation costs, labor costs. We have to think in terms of cash figures, you see. Sometimes that means the administration has to make unpopular decisions. It’s just not plausible with the current budget — meal plan sales are way down.
“So basically I’m stuck with the situation here: to either tell everyone why we can’t simply just reopen Erie and undermine confidence in the administration or to risk more angry students,” she said.
“The whole ritual is inscribed beautifully on ancient tablets in the hall’s basement, by the way,” she revealed, describing in detail the graphic depictions of burning lambs and haunting chants. “In fact, last I heard, they were being used to prop up a broken shelf in storage.”