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Two UF students share their thoughts on food available on campus
By Grant Goodfellow, GoodfellowG@Findlay.edu
There aren’t many things more important to everyday life than food. No matter who you are everyone needs to eat. At the University of Findlay there are many different dining options for students on campus. These include Henderson Dining Hall, The Refinery, and Simply to go. All of these options are made available through the catering company Sodexo.
Riley McKinniss is the marketing coordinator for dining services. Part of her job is to get feedback from students on what they like and don’t like. A group of students called the SPICE committee meets monthly to discuss possible changes and recommendations.
“We really open that up to all students,” said McKinniss. “You don’t have to be interested in cooking or baking yourself. You can just be interested in developing the dining program and upgrading it as you see fit.”
There are many students that have dietary restrictions. Approximately 25% of students are following some type of diet, according to Food Service Director.
Lauren Perry is a senior who transferred from Tiffin University to UF. She used to eat at the dining hall at Tiffin all the time but over the last two years she hasn’t eaten on campus very often.
“I like to eat out on the weekend,” Perry said. “It’s really nice that with Derrick Dollars you have that option.”
Derrick Dollars can be used in place of cash at any participating dining location, according to the UF website.
Eating healthy is very important to overall health. Furthermore, the food that you eat can also impact how students perform academically. According to the CDC students with higher grades are more likely to eat vegetables at least once a day and less likely to drink soda.
There is undoubtably a big adjustment from living at home to living on campus. Perry says that she has started to eat healthier recently compared to her first years at college.
“Sometimes at the dining hall you just eat whatever they have there. I’m more of a picky eater so sometimes the only thing I have to eat is something that might not be as healthy as I would like it to be,” said Perry. “Now that I don’t eat as the dining hall as much, I definitely buy better things for myself.”
Justin Reed is a freshman at UF. He thinks there are enough healthy options on campus, but he has been eating less healthy than he did when he lived at home.
“At home I was used to making a lot more food than I can now,” Reed said. “I probably eat more unhealthy food now because it’s more available.”
Reed dines at Henderson Dining Hall about twice a day, and he says he hopes for an increase in quality and options.
“The food at Henderson definitely seems like it’s always the same kind of things,” Reed said. “I think it leaves something to be desired.”
Perry feels that there are a lot more dining options at UF than when she was at Tiffin University. Furthermore, she said that for the size of UF there are a reasonable number of places to get food.
“I think that we should be very grateful for the options that we have,” Perry said.
McKinniss says that Sodexo is constantly looking for new ideas and ways to improve dining at UF.
“We really try to be at the forefront of innovation, and we push really hard to be one of the first universities to have a lot of new stuff within the Sodexo community,” said McKinniss. “I think from a personal perspective it’s really cool to see how many options the students have here.”
Any student that would like to learn more about dining service on campus or get in touch with a staff member to talk about dining services should follow Oiler Eats on Instagram. That is the main way that dining services communicates with students. There you can find hours, special events, and polls.
