by Meryl Phair ’21
Environmental Editor
“Safety is hands down the goal but having great food needs to happen, especially during stressful and challenging times,” Richard Perna, director of Dining Services at Mount Holyoke College said. According to Perna, the past five months have been challenging for the dining staff, who have been constantly navigating and pivoting in response to COVID-19. Throughout the months of adjusting to new realities, one thing has remained in the forefront of their thoughts: opening the Dining Commons. “From early on we said we really want to open [them],” Perna said. “We haven’t changed our minds in terms of how we are going to service students. … We want to be able to open all the stations if we’re able.”
Along with internal meetings, Perna has been talking to at least one or two colleges every week for the last several months, checking in on decisions and the development of new dining models. “There's a lot of schools out there that are moving towards take out only,” Perna said. “So they’ll have five or six pick-up places around campus.”
Students will grab breakfast, lunch and dinner from designated locations as a boxed meal. They have about four rotating choices, and most of the time it will be a cold meal. “I really feel like that gets old quick and it's not a hot meal,” Perna said.
Mount Holyoke is adopting a different approach, choosing to open the doors of the Dining Commons. However, significant changes will be made in accordance with COVID-19 regulations and health precautions. The Dining Commons will be open for meal hours seven days a week with breakfast served 7:15 a.m. to 9:00 a.m., lunch from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and dinner from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. It will be takeout only and all community members must wear masks and have a MHC ID to enter. Additionally, no guests will be permitted.
A new meal plan will be adopted for the fall semester which will include 25 meal swipes per week. The Dining Commons is open for 21 total meals during the week. The extra four meal swipes are built in for students to use in the case of snacks or early lunches.
In restructuring the department to balance financial cutbacks while still providing quality meals that meet dietary and religious needs, Dining Services will be opening all stations, with the exception of Breakfast All Day. There will be no self-service of any kind, per CDC and Massachusetts state guidelines. Although not serving all the food they normally would, Perna said, “At least you can pick out exactly what you want.” Perna also said that they don’t want students to feel like they are limited to food and have made options for students that would take care of any additional food students might need throughout the day beyond the three takeout meals.
The Club Room in the Dining Commons will be turned into a Grab ’n Go. Students can come into the Dining Commons, grab what they need from Grab ’n Go and also access food within the Dining Commons. This gives Dining Services the ability to do half portions, full portions, snacks, chips and other items that students might want throughout the day or for a late night snack. Grab ’n Go options, along with the meal options, will be posted daily on the dining website.
This Grab ’n Go will replace the Grab ’n Go previously located in the ground floor of Blanchard Community Center. That space will be closed, along with the adjacent Cochary Pub and Kitchen and the Frances Perk Cafe in the Williston Library, which similarly have to be temporarily closed for safety precautions. Perna said that there is a possibility that, down the line, these locations could reopen in some capacity. As of now, however, they will remain closed while the dining staff and the campus community settle into the new routine.
This routine will take some getting used to, as it is a completely new business model for everyone accessing the space — staff and students alike.
“We just ask for everyone's patience as we get through the first couple of weeks,” Perna said. In addition to new service operations, there will be floor markings and upright posters to indicate one-way directives. This will also assist in indicating the 6 foot social distancing that must be maintained at all times. Perna said that there will be a lot of communication going out to the student body about the expectations of the space as well as clear directions of where to go when community members enter the space.
Some lines are expected, as there regularly is at the beginning of the semester, while everyone gets adjusted and navigates their new schedules. However, Perna is pleased with the way the College is scheduling classes with various release times because it will organically translate well to mitigating congestive flows through the Dining Commons.
For the students that are currently on campus, the Dining Commons has been open daily with service from one and a half stations. “We have a hundred students that we’re feeding and we’re doing that in one hour,” Perna said. “We have no issues whatsoever with spacing.” The student population will be 1,100 for the fall semester, but with eight stations open for three hours in addition to the class schedules, Perna says he feels comfortable in terms of spacing.
In addition to necessary alterations to the dining system, employees have also been impacted. The dining staff has had to make internal changes with completely new schedules which Perna said has been “quite a big process across the board.” Similarly, student employment within Dining Services will look different for the fall semester. About half the jobs for student workers will be available. Although the dishroom won't be operating, there is still a large need for student employment to serve meals.
Dining Services is still working on figuring out some final pieces to its new system. They are currently working on setting up another Grab ’n Go store in the Library Room, to the left of the cashier station. Students would likely be able to use their Dining Dollars there, another detail that is still being finalized.
Similarly, they are still working through some sustainability concerns. While the takeout containers will be compostable, Facilities Management is expecting an increase in waste on campus as a result of the single-use items. At the moment, personal reusable containers that students might have will not be allowed to be brought into the space due to sanitation concerns. “We're having conversations about implementing a reusable container that Dining [Services] would source,” Perna said.
Dining Services will be in a constant state of adoption and reconfiguration as it moves through the semester and confronts new challenges. For example, on July 24, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker put out a state mandate, effective Aug. 1, which requires those who enter Massachusetts to either pass a COVID-19 test or complete a two-week self-quarantine. Violators will be fined $500 a day. These testing and quarantine requirements must be met before students can enter the Dining Commons. Perna said that they might have to do food delivery for those students who are self-quarantining.
Perna and the dining staff always appreciate student feedback as it helps them navigate how best to serve the campus community. “We’ll continue to pivot and make changes as we go,” he said. “We’ll be listening to students and what they're looking for. We really want to make sure we're hitting everyone's needs and expectations.”