Dining plans moving along

by Brian Clites

Staff Writer

Imagine having at least ten food kiosks, each offering distinctly different foods, available at every Grinnell dining hall meal. Such variety will be the main dining option for Grinnell students in 2006, when the new campus center, including the all-campus dining hall, is expected to be finished. Though administrators are now focusing on smaller details of the plan, students on the campus center committee are still encouraging student input.

The campus center planning is rolling forward. Last week, architects summarized the situation at an open forum; the week before, campus center committee members and other faculty held a workshop to discuss options for making the campus center more environmentally gentle.

According to committee chair Tom Crady, plans for the center are about halfway through their design and development phase. The construction phase should begin at the end of next year.

“What [the committee] is doing right now is really trying to figure out what [equipment] is going to be in each of the rooms of the campus center,” said Crady, the college’s vice president for student services.

“We’re halfway through the design/development phase,” he specified.

Although an environmental workshop held on Wednesday, Jan. 22, made no immediate changes to the plans, many suggestions were put forward for ways to make the building greener. The eight-hour meeting brought together representatives of the U.S. Green Building Council, architects, committee members, EcoCampus members, and faculty. “I think it was a very beneficial and interesting meeting,” said Crady. “It raised [awareness of] some really important things.”

The demolition of Darby Gym is tentatively scheduled to start at the end of the Grinnell basketball season next year. When the first brick of Darby hits the ground in April, construction of the new campus center will officially have begun, and is expected to continue for about two years.

New details were recently released about the serving (“servery”) area of the all-campus dining hall, which will be on the first floor of the campus center. The servery area will have a station-based dining format, where students can select their food from multiple food kiosks. “We were all pretty skeptical until we saw it work at other places,” said Crady.

“Ideally, you’re cooking in small batches right in front of the customer,” said Al Moller, a consultant in charge of the dining area, at last week’s forum.

The tentative planning of which types of food to include at each serving station was based on the online survey last semester. Accordingly, the new servery details include kiosks for vegan and organic food, waffles and soft-serve ice cream, “home style” meals, sandwiches, international food, soups and salads, sautéed items like eggs and pasta, grilled foods, pizza, cereal, desserts and bread, and two beverage stations located on opposite ends of the servery.

Joseph Oppong ’03, one of three students on the campus center committee, said he liked the kiosk plan because it left the door open for future menu changes.

“I am actually a lot more excited about [the campus center] now then when I left campus,” said Katie Pieper ’03, who studied at Atlanta’s Spellman College last semester. Pieper has been impressed by the architects’ willingness to listen. “If we think of something and throw it out there, they’re definitely willing to consider it…they want it to be Grinnell-friendly,” she said.

The architects also do not want the center to seem massive, Piper said. To visually divide the campus center into smaller areas, the architects are planning, among other things, to vary the colors of the flooring, furniture, and walls. According to Pieper, the architects “do not want [the building] to feel institutionalized.”

Speaking about the furniture ideas she’s seen, Pieper said, “it’s extremely hip, that’s the only way I can describe it … very different from my Grinnell experience.” Pieper is currently seeking student input on a related issue that came up at the most recent meeting: whether or not to use leather on any of the furniture. To Pieper’s dismay, only four students attended last week’s open forum to voice their views to architects. “If students are concerned, there are a lot of open minds there willing to listen,” she said.

To facilitate student suggestions, the student committee members will continue to collect student suggestions in the box located by the campus center model in the Forum Grill.