University dining services caters to students with new additions

Central Washington University students asked for better food and more options in a campus-wide survey earlier this year, and that's what they'll find when they arrive back at school next week.

More Asian food, hot sandwiches, comfort food, organics, gluten-free options and breakfast all day are just some of the changes students can expect to see for the 2015-16 school year.

Dining Services earlier this year conducted a student survey to learn what students needed and wanted to eat, said Joel Klucking, who oversees CWU Dining Services as associate vice president of financial and business auxiliaries.

Dining Services started its quest to improve food in April. A group of students and the dining advisory team convened to form a focus group of 27 people that had weekly meetings.

"We pretty much solicited every major student group on campus that we should," Klucking said.

Students were asked what they liked about the current dining, what they didn't like, what they get back home that they don't get at Central and what they thought of the aesthetics.

"We got a lot of good feedback from this focus group that was the basis of an all-student survey," Klucking said.

CWU then sent a survey to all 10,000 students. It gave students 10 different options and a space for freeform commentary to talk about what they wanted to see. About 25 percent of each class responded to the survey, with 810 respondents total.

"The students are very keenly interested in what they eat," Klucking said.

More options

In response to the survey, five new food venues will be put into the Holmes Dining Room in the SURC. The space, formerly a buffet-style eatery, is being modified for the new venues. The all-you-can-eat facility in the hall is the institutional food service model, Klucking said, but it's underutilized and disappearing.

Asian food options will be expanded at the existing Pan Asia station to include pho, bahn mi sandwiches and more.

The five new stations are the Central Griddle, serving breakfast all day; Sliced, serving hot sandwiches; Central Comfort, serving comfort food; Totally Tossed Organic and Natural, an organic salad bar; and The Green Table, serving gluten and allergen free food.

“The students say they want all the healthy food, but, ‘Please give me my chicken strips and breakfast all day,’” Klucking said. “They want choices.”

Another change is having more local food options, like Vinman’s Bakery.

“In the past we had a variety of sliced bread sandwiches,” Klucking said. “We’re going with roll sandwiches now. Introducing Vinman’s is going to be a big selling point for us.”