Over winter break, Drake Dining staff went through additional training sessions and updated safety procedures, according to an email sent out to students on Jan. 27 by Vice President and Dean of Students Jerry Parker.

“It is our hope that these changes will improve overall satisfaction for our students,” Parker said in the email.

The Times-Delphic conducted another survey regarding Hubbell Dining Hall asking students if their complaints were addressed by Sodexo and Drake Dining, as well as their opinion on the changes made by staff.

Student Senators and dietitian initiate changes

Drake dietician Samantha Matt and two student senators, Sean Groh and Sarah Fey, led Hubbell’s recent changes. Groh decided to start working with Matt when he was one of the few students who attended the Hubbell Culinary Council in November.

“After that [Hubbell Culinary Council Meeting], Samantha reached out to both me and Sean [Groh],” Fey said. “That’s how we started getting involved with that initiative, because she needed more advice from students.”

Matt told Fey she didn’t believe she could “reach students very well.”

To reach students effectively, Fey provided an anonymous form in her senate Instagram profile for students to voice their thoughts on Hubbell. Fey and Groh also tabled in Hubbell on Dec. 6 to hear student feedback on Hubbell.

“We asked what people wanted to see from Hubbell and how they could improve Hubbell. That’s how we started getting involved with Drake Dining at first,” Groh said.

Fey’s motivation to help with the Hubbell changes stemmed from her past experiences with the dining hall.

“I am lactose and gluten intolerant, so eating at Hubbell was always difficult for me,” Fey said. “I just recently moved off campus just so I didn’t have to eat at Hubbell. I felt like it was not fair for me to leave Hubbell how it is when it’s my job to help make it better.”

Groh and Fey both intend to keep helping Matt and Hubbell in any way they can.

“I intend on meeting with [Matt] and the executive head chef, just checking in to see if they need anything from us as student senators, especially seeing if there’s anything that we should be doing to get the students’ voices involved,” Groh said. “Any concerns that students have with Hubbell should be heard.”

Hubbell introduces self-cooking station

Students who stayed on campus for J-Term were met with the UCook station, a new addition to Hubbell.

UCook is located on the North Side of Hubbell where the pizza and pasta station once was. This new station allows students and Hubbell guests to cook their own food with assorted ingredients, including proteins, vegetables, sauces and starches. All ingredients come pre-cooked, but students are able to warm them up in frying pans.

“UCook was implemented as a response to students requesting more customizable options,” Matt said. “We hope UCook will be a fun way for students to craft meals that fit their personal preferences while potentially developing new cooking skills.”

Of the 28 students who responded to the TD’s survey, 50% said they have utilized UCook. Most of those respondents said they use it 1-4 times a week. 64.3% indicated they either agree or strongly agree that the new station is a valuable addition to Hubbell.

“The UCook station has made my experience of Hubbell extremely positive,” an anonymous respondent said. “I love being able to have control of the portions and ingredients, and I’ve been trying new things like bamboo shoots, even if I don’t like it.”

The rotating ingredients the station provides allow for students to try new things, but some survey respondents said they want more variety.

“I would like to see the types of meats and grains change every day because sometimes just chicken and pork gets boring,” an anonymous respondent said. “I’d like to see shrimp on the menu because I think that gives more options for people that are pescatarian.”

Some students who took the survey believe UCook takes up unnecessary space.

“When I go to Hubbell, it’s because I need a quick option or I don’t have time to cook for myself,” another anonymous respondent said. “This station takes up way too much time and energy for me to regularly use. The space it takes up is not worth the food items that it replaced.”

While the new addition is seen as valuable by over half of respondents, some students believe the new station wasn’t needed.

“I definitely think it’s cool that it’s there but also I didn’t necessarily need something new,” first-year Dylan Powers*said in the survey. “Safety was my bigger concern.”

Hubbell has improved, slim majority of students indicate

In the survey, 75% of students said their opinion of Hubbell had changed since last semester. 57.2% of respondents indicated they agree or strongly agree that Hubbell has improved since last semester. One anonymous student was “surprised [at] the improvements” and said that the dining hall is “improving slowly.”

“I am happy to see they took the criticism as a time to change and fix things,” sophomore Dayton Fleenor said in the survey.

28.6% of the students either disagree or strongly disagree Hubbell has improved. Even with the changes, some students are having a hard time believing much has been done.

“The quality of the food has only worsened, there has been no change in the sanitary practices of the employees and there have been stocking issues of common items,” sophomore Piper Lebert said in the survey. “Additionally, on the South side, they have been enforcing smaller and smaller portion sizes and refusing to give more food when asked.”

Students who took the TD survey are split on whether Sodexo and Drake Dining listen to their complaints and concerns. 39.3% of respondents indicated they either agree or strongly agree that students’ concerns have been addressed by Sodexo and Drake Dining staff. 28.6% responded neutral to the statement, and 32.2% either disagree or strongly disagree that their voice has been heard.

Lebert believes a solution to many of the issues she sees is to train the employees more.

“I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, but I think there needs to be a very core level of, like, training to make sure that employees are meeting cleanliness standards and sanitation practices,” Lebert said.

In an email to the TD last semester, Matt shared the training Drake Dining staff receives. She said all employees “receive training on how to safely handle allergen-free foods.” All employees are taught how to record “temperatures and times for cooking, holding, cooling and reheating” and are “instructed on properly following recipes [and] handwashing techniques,” she said.

Quincy Hill, a first-year who worked with Drake Dining last semester, shared his training experience with the TD last semester.

“I learned that temperature needs to be a certain way all the time and I need to take the temperatures of the food before I put them on display,” Hill said. ”I am advised to cover whatever I’m setting up early so flies won’t land in the food.”

Daichi Watanabe, a sophomore who worked with Hubbell during the spring 2024 semester and again this semester, said his training experience was very different.

“The first day I met my boss, he told me what to do and that’s it,” Watanabe said. “I don’t think [I learned any food safety]. I was just told to not cross-contaminate.”

Many students in the survey complained about the loss of reliable options at the Sizzle station. In response, Matt told the TD that the options at the station “have been restructured to allow for more variety in rotating options.” She also said the previous options such as quesadillas, chicken sandwiches and grilled cheeses are “still available upon request as made-to-order items.”

“It’s good to know that they’re available to be made-to-order because that was not communicated in any fashion by signage or employees,” Lebert said. “I do appreciate that, but the concern to me with things being rotated out is that [the station] was very strongly advertised as something that is reliable and not going to change. One of the deal-sealing reasons that I chose Drake was that the food at Hubbell reliably had [static] food.”

In both last semester’s and this semester’s TD dining surveys, some students said they believe that Hubbell’s food quality is better on tour days.

“There is no intentional difference in food quality on visit days as the menus are planned months in advance, often before we are informed of tour dates,” Matt said in an email sent to the TD on Feb. 13.

Lebert believes this perceived difference in quality is not due to the menu, but an unintentional change in effort by the staff.

“Whether they mean to or not, the employees probably put more effort into making the food better, because there are people watching,” Lebert said. “You can ask anyone on campus, food is better on tour days, regardless of what the menu is, it’s just higher quality and more consistently made.”

The next Sodexo student satisfaction survey began Monday, Feb. 24. In the email Parker sent out in the beginning of the semester, he asked students to email him directly with concerns so he could respond accordingly. Students who would like to share comments to The Times-Delphic regarding Drake Dining can do so via the anonymous tip survey in @draketimesdelphic’s Instagram bio.

Dylan Powers and Sarah Fey are former Times-Delphic staff members.