Student Dining Advisory Committee

On Wednesday, November 19, HUDS met with the Undergraduate Council-appointed Student Dining Advisory Committee for the first time. This is a group of students who self-nominate to serve in a liaison role, gathering feedback from their peers, sharing it with HUDS, and reporting back on the findings or outcomes.

This year’s committee includes:
Senan Ebrahim ’12 (Annenberg)
Rebecca Levitan ’12 (Annenberg)
Eric Michel ’12 (Annenberg)
Julie-Claire Guest ’11 (Mather)
Zachary Gordon ’10 (Lowell)
James Wilsterman ’10 (Lowell)
Peter Bacon ’11 (Dunster)
Emily Etheridge ’09 (Dunster)
Colin Donovan ’11 (Quincy)

Note: As a reminder, we also have Food Literacy Project (FLP) Reps in every House. See http://harvarddining.blogspot.com/2008/10/food-literacy-project-reps.html

This committee always starts with an orientation to how HUDS operates – budgets, menus, staffing, etc. Looking forward, we expect to meet monthly, or even more often if it is needed or desired, to review feedback the committee has received and to get input as we develop new menu items, consider initiatives, or prepare survey questions.

During our meeting Wednesday, the group brought forward the following issues:
1. Offering more variety of fresh fruit in the dining halls
2. Offering real yogurt in the dining halls (as opposed to powdered mix yogurt)
3. Adding yogurt to Fly-by
4. Having hot entrees besides pasta during Fly-by
5. Assuring a high-protein entree that is not meat every day (for vegetarians)

Here are my thoughts:

Fresh fruit – this is a long-standing request, and one on which seasonality has a great impact. During the early fall, we try to offer as much locally grown fruit as possible, including apples, pears, and peaches. This time of year starts to have a little less variety, as only apples store well through the winter months, and exotic hand fruits become cost prohibitive. In December, we will begin to see citrus, and we’ll offer a variety that includes tangerines and clementines, As well, kiwis appear occasionally, and we always have oranges and bananas. As for cut fruit and berries, that also varies with season, availability and price, though we’ll see if it can be worked in periodically.

Real yogurt versus powdered? I’m not sure what that is. The plain non-fat and flavored low-fat yogurt we serve at the breakfast and salad bar is a Hood product. Our non-free frozen yogurt is from Columbo. The yogurt does have active cultures, which are so important to digestion.

We are investigating adding yogurt to Fly-By and should have an answer after Thanksgiving break. Additionally, we will work on the hot entrée menu at Fly-By.

The final item, vegetarian options, is one we have also been working on with a group of vegetarian and vegan students, primarily from Winthrop House. They too pointed out their desire more recognizable hot entrees. They also asked for more variety than tofu.

Here are some new entrees you can look forward to (or may have already enjoyed):
• Curry lentil bake
• Eggplant Parmesan
• Cajun black bean cakes
• Roasted vegetable Panini
• Tortilla vegetable pie
• Portabella & lentil cakes
• Spanakopita turnovers
• Sweet & sour garbanzo beans
• Eggplant curry
• Pumpkin gnocchi with brown butter & sage
• Spicy lentil curry
• Black bean fajitas
• Chickpea tikka masala
• Vegetable Bhaji masala

Moving forward, I encourage you to keep sharing your feedback, through the Student Dining Advisory Committee or through any number of other feedback mechanisms, including this blog, the online or print feedback cards, or directly to your dining hall manager. We truly enjoy the opportunity to work with you and productively tailor the dining program better to the broad needs of our community.

A New Stripe on Campus

As you know, after a review of security and technology last spring, the University implemented a new ID card. The new card is more secure because it can hold multiple credentials and process more transactions than other card technologies. It includes an antenna, two magnetic stripes, and an embedded chip that is unique to the University, adding an additional level of protection against fraudulent copying.

Effective November 17, HUDS will adopt the thin magnetic stripe technology for all transactions that use our Blackboard system. 12,000 undergraduates and House affiliates received the new ID cards in September as FAS used them for enhanced door security. The remainder of the campus will get new cards from the University in December and January.

What does this mean for you? As of November 17, instead of using the wide magnetic stripe, you will now flip your card over and use the thin stripe. This includes:
• Residential dining meal swipes
• Board Plus purchase swipes
• Crimson Cash transactions, including vending, laundry, copying, retail dining location purchases, and off-campus merchant purchases, such as the Coop
• M2 shuttle rides

In the dining hall, people occasionally enter their HUID manually instead of swiping. Your HUID will no longer work in the dining hall, and you will instead use the long number associated with the thin magnetic stripe (located under the thin stripe, starting with a “CC”). You should note that if you forget to bring your card, we will have a back-up swipe system in place until the start of second semester.

If for some reason you don’t have a new 2-stripe card, you can get one at a University-hosted re-carding events next month (see www.newid.huid.harvard.edu), where you will be asked to personally exchange your single-stripe Harvard ID for the new card. (Note: this only applies to permanent University ID cards that have your photo on them – not to temporary cards). Watch for messages from your local school or program for details about where and when you should get re-carded.

To learn more about the new Harvard IDs, visit http://www.newid.huid.harvard.edu