A chat with a member of the Save Purdue Dining movement

She responds to Mitch Daniels’ claim ‘our job is not to have good food’

President Mitch Daniels has not shied away from his firm stance on corporatizing Purdue University. Considering the recent increase in adjunct faculty (that is, college faculty who do not get the same compensation and benefits as full-time faculty) and the increased presence and integration of large businesses and corporations on campus — you’ve probably seen all those Amazon stores popping up everywhere, and that’s just one example of many — it’s becoming clear that this university is one of many rapidly slipping into a business mindset. It’s funny, I think, that places of education are becoming heavily synonymous with places of business.

One of the most recent changes unfolding — and seemingly unknown to many students — is the outsourcing of Purdue dining. By the end of May, the Purdue Board of Trustees will review a year long study on Purdue Dining. So, it looks like it’s official: Purdue’s dining halls may be heading toward outsourcing. The Save Purdue Dining movement formed to address that possibility and bring it to a halt if possible.

It’s really less about the food, and more about the orange shirts in the background making it all happen

Like I mentioned, many students don’t really have a clue as to what outsourcing means for the University and — more importantly — its students and staff. Purdue is one of the few universities that still caters in-house dining. Right now, Purdue Dining is run and operated exclusively by Purdue itself. Other schools employ outside companies to handle the dining, often enforcing meal options limited to a very simple entree/side/drink combination (kind of like On-The-Go here at Purdue). For these schools, profit appears to be the first priority.

If you’ve ever visited IU and have eaten at their cafeterias, it probably didn’t take much to notice how sad the comparison is. Of course, the movement here at Purdue to counter the possibility of outsourcing and “Save Purdue Dining” is not just an effort to preserve food quality. More than that, the students want to make clear that should the outsourcing possibility actually be approved and implemented, the employees currently working for Purdue Dining will more than likely be considered as little more than numbers and paperwork.

Many long-time and dedicated Purdue Dining employees have described this who matter as sneaky and “under-the-rug.” So to gain a bit of insight into this whole phenomenon, I sat down with some of the movement’s leading voices after one of the information sessions this month. Here’s Dana Smith, a senior in Mathematics an Apparel Design.

Students at Purdue might not see plates that look this diverse in the future

What would you define this movement as to people/students/staff who have no idea about what’s happening?

Right now, Purdue is evaluating dining services to determine ways to accommodate the future increase of students living in residence halls. One option to meet this increase would be outsourcing dining services, which means a third party private company would come in and take over dining. If outsourced, all the employees would no longer work directly for Purdue. A group of students (that’s us) is working to make sure this doesn’t happen. We’ve seen at other campuses where once the food is outsourced its quality decreases dramatically, and often the workers are fired and rehired at lower wages with worse benefits. Outsourcing is not a sustainable option to keep students in residence halls. If the food is bad, students won’t want to live here. Many workers will no longer want to work here as well.

What specific steps have you taken to spread awareness about the issue here on campus?

So far, we have started a petition that has almost 1000 signatures in support of not outsourcing. Additionally, we hosted a worker panel where workers from campuses that have outside companies like Aramark doing their food service came to speak about their experiences working for private dining services.

Is outsourcing here at Purdue inevitable? 

I don’t believe it is inevitable. So many people are mobilized against this issue that we have the power to do something about it. President Daniels has demonstrated time and time again that he wants to run this university like a business, but we won’t stand for that. The students have a say in what goes on here, and if our voices are ignored we will make sure they are heard.

What are some of the effects, either negative or positive, that outsourcing would have on the students, staff, and/or the university as a whole?

Outsourcing generally has a short term “positive” effect of saving money. But again, Dining Services is a profitable, self-sustaining arm of the university. This isn’t an issue. In the long run, outsourcing causes a lot of damage. The quality of the food deteriorates, which will discourage students from staying in residence halls. Also, the money that Dining makes goes back into fixing and rehabilitating the residence halls. We could see a decrease in the quality of our residential living as well. Not to mention the negative impacts that outsourcing would have on staff — lower pay and worse benefits.

Any final thoughts?

We actually confronted Daniels about dining outsourcing at Purdue Student Government’s “Hot Dogs with the Top Dogs” event last Thursday [April 21st], and he told us “Look, our goal is not to be an employment agency. We’re not trying to have as many people on the payroll as possible. As a university, we’re here to educate people, do some research, but our job is not to have good food.” We feel like that comment really sums it all up.

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