Solutions for college dining services this fall

Outdoor tents? Grab-and-go and delivery programs? And what happens to those big, beautiful dining halls?

Those are all questions that college dining programs are trying to address as they determine what their fall reopening plans will be. Some universities are beginning to announce what their reopening plans look like. Harvard and Princeton recently announced they were going back to school with smaller on-campus populations. Harvard will invite about 40% of students to campus, including the freshman class, and that students will be tested every three days during the semester and live in single rooms. At Princeton, about half of undergraduates will arrive in August, including freshmen and juniors, while the other half can return the following semester.

But one thing is task is top of mind for operators: How do I continue community building through my dining programs in a socially distanced world?

This summer, Food Management is hosting Back To School, a leadership series for food service directors. This five-week educational series focuses on K-12 child nutrition programs and college and university dining services.

Three sessions are focused specifically on college and university dining programs. The first, How to start a delivery program on your campus, on July 21, will offer insights into two colleges that have implemented delivery for students, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and UC Davis. While Wisconsin’s robot delivery program has been running for a while, UC Davis started its program as a direct result of coronavirus.

Related:Taking stock of the back-to-school food service environment

The second session will address the future of dining halls, and specifically how dining services addresses community building on campus. That session is July 28 with speakers including Jill Horst, executive director of campus dining for UC Santa Barbara.

The third will unveil proprietary research conducted by Food Management that will put a data-defined perspective on the changes, solutions and challenges ahead for campus dining this fall. That session is on Aug. 11.

Registration is now live for these, and more sessions at https://webinars.food-management.com/back-to-school/.