 "Photo: Alicia Schuster / UCD Advocate")
The proud coat of arms, the ivied walls, the all-night cram sessions in wood-paneled residences. These are components of the conventional college experience that UC Denver has always lacked. But with the gradual shift away from being a commuter school, there is one hallowed tradition UCD can now call its own: bitching about dorm food.
“Sometimes, I just can’t eat this food,” said Dominique Searuggs, a Campus Village resident having dinner at that dorm’s café. “My body rejects it. It’s upsetting.”
Like every other first-year resident at Campus Village, Searuggs either uses the $275 per month he is required to pay for the dorm’s meal plan or loses it. That figure means students have about $9 per day to spend on food—roughly the cost of the all-you-can-eat buffet dinner at the café. Students also have the option of using their meal cards at Pete’s Arena or the Quick Zone convenience store in the Tivoli, or at the Einstein Bros. Bagels on campus.
What all those outlets have in common is that they are run by Sodexo, a multinational corporation commonly associated with institutional food. According to its website, the company serves meals to 50 million people each day. Sodexo took over management of Campus Village’s meal plans from Chartwells, another large-scale food distributor, last semester.
Bill Lepper, general manager of Sodexo at Auraria, noted that, before Sodexo took over, students had only the dorm café. “They didn’t have any options before,” he said.
Searuggs said that helps. “I eat at Einstein’s like, twice a day,” he said.
“I can’t do that,” said Taryn Nesbit, his dining companion. “I’ll get fat.”
Wes Martin, another resident at Campus Village, lamented that, in terms of nutrition, the dorm café was just as bad: “This place is going to make me so goddamn fat,” he said.
Nesbit agreed: “It’s not healthy.”
Lepper took issue with those statements, arguing that Sodexo has a history of commitment to providing healthy dining options. “We’ve been doing that for 10 years,” he said.
And in spite of Sodexo’s healthier offerings, he suggested, what kids often actually end up eating is the very stuff they complain about. “All the kids want to start eating healthier, but then they go right back to the french fries.”
Mostly, Lepper said, he was surprised that residents had complaints at all. “We’ve really had nothing but positive feedback,” he said, noting that the company has had continuous meetings and focus groups with residents and resident advisors since it took over, soliciting their opinions on the dining options the company provides. “We take that stuff very seriously,” he said. “That’s our job, is to cater to what the kids want.”What the kids seemed to want more than anything was more food for less money.
“If you eat dinner here,” Nesbit said, “good luck with breakfast and lunch.” Searuggs said he spends money he saved over the summer to supplement the extra cost of meals beyond his plan.
“It’s hard,” said Nesbit, “to spend the extra money when I should have food. If it was $275 a month in groceries, that would be doable, but here it’s not enough.” Nesbit conceded, though, that even if she did have the option of buying groceries, her dorm is not equipped with a kitchen to cook them.
For his part, Lepper said, “I really think they would be shocked at how much it costs to eat in the real world.” He added that he felt Sodexo’s prices were a good value, and that residents had the option of buying some groceries at Quick Zone. As of March 9, a 12-ounce container of milk sold at Quick Zone for $1.39, while 64 ounces of the same sold at King Soopers for 10 cents more.
As for students’ resentment that they’re forced to spend money on the plan in the first place, Lepper said Sodexo had no control over that. “That’s the university,” he said. “But every major university does the exact same thing.”
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