Institute Dining Review
Summary of Recommendations

1. In General

The Institute Dining Review, based on past studies, public feedback, the Educational Mission of Dining, and the Objectives of Residential Dining, recommends that MIT implement a new, centrally coordinated food system. This system will incorporate all food and beverage providers operating within the campus -- including all catering and vending operations -- under a managed competition model of service delivery.

2. Administrative Structure

• Using dining to support MIT's educational mission.
• Ensuring that the community is informed about, and involved with, the campus dining system.
• Financial management.
• Administration of all dining contracts, including vending operations, cash operations, residential operations, and catering. This includes requiring vendors to maintain the highest standards of food quality, safety, sanitation, customer service, product service, and site mix. The Office will regularly evaluate contractors to ensure that they are living up to these standards. It will have the authority to renew or discontinue contracts based upon the evaluations' findings.
• Advising and coordinating with student run operations.
• Strategic planning for the dining system.
• MIT Card / Multi Plan operations.
• Nutrition, health assurance, and nutrition education (to be supervised by a community nutritionist.

The Campus Dining Board will serve in an advisory role to the Office of Campus Dining. The Board would consist of 3 students, 3 faculty, 3 staff, a Health Education Officer and and the Director of Campus Dining. The Board will be involved with all major decisions regarding dining services, included but not limited to the following:

• Strategic planning for the dining system.
• Evaluating how well the dining system is supporting MIT's educational mission and other dining goals.
• The vendor expectations written into contracts.
• Contract review and enforcement procedures.
• Deciding which vendors will be awarded contracts and which contracts would be renewed.

On the local level, local oversight groups will oversee and advise different aspects of the dining system (catering, residential dining, etc.). These groups will assist the Board, the Office, and the vendors with the following:

• Menu selection and other site-specific determinations.
• Program development for their respective site or activity.
• General advisement to the vendors and the Office of Campus Dining.

3. Campus Vendors

• Eastern / Western. Includes the dining halls in the west campus residence halls, Lobdell, Networks, and Sloan (Faculty Club and Refresher Course). Also includes the right to cater MIT events.
• Central. Includes Morss Hall, Pritchett, the Building 4 Coffee Shop, the Dome Cafe, the Bio Cafe, and any other eateries between Massachusetts Avenue and Ames Street (which would include the new cafeteria in the CIIS building). Also includes the right to cater MIT events.
• Vending. Would operate all vending machines on campus.
• Catering. A group of recognized catering companies (10-15) would be allowed to cater events on campus.
• External Vendors. Other vendors outside MIT (including the food trucks) may join the managed-competition dining system. In exchange for accepting oversight by MIT, these vendors would be able to accept the MIT card as well as receive direct payments from MIT accounts. Costs for installation and use of the MIT Card system would be paid by the participants. Further, MIT may also negotiation profit-sharing agreements with some of the outside vendors on MIT-related business.

This zoning model was the best the Review found. It allows the two primary vendors to generate enough sales to make the zones attractive propositions to the nation's highest quality providers, while always allowing members of the community to choose between two different vendors.

Expectations of Vendors Contracts with all vendors will include high expectations for performance and management. All vendors must provide customer service training for their employees, particularly in working with students in an educational environment. They will enforce high standards of customer service with their employees. Further, vendors will teach appropriate methods of sanitation, nutrition, food preparation, and hospitality.

Professional development will be strongly encouraged in the new system. By providing training and opportunities for advancement, employees are encouraged to provide the best possible service.

Contractors on campus should be entrepreneurial and manage their operations in the style of a free market. All contractors should attempt to have a chef-manager in charge of operations, as this type of manager is more inclined to run campus dining operations like an actual restaurant or catering business. The "bottom line" is improved by knowledge of customer service and food quality.

4. Residential Dining

The Review recognizes the value that our unique student residence have for the student body and the MIT community. Therefore, the dining program in each residence hall should be structured in cooperation with the residents of that hall to ensure that the dining program is consistent with the hall's particular characteristics and culture.

The Review recognizes that students' freedom of choice is an important aspect of the undergraduate experience at MIT that must be maintained. However, it is neither practical nor feasible to provide all dining options in all halls at all times. Therefore, the Review recommends that a full range of residential dining options be provided system-wide, allowing students freedom to choose a dining program that best meets their particular needs.

Management of Residential Dining. Each residence hall would have a local oversight group. The groups would assist in developing dining programs for their respective houses. In houses centered around personal cooking, the oversight groups would arrange cooking and food purchasing programs, as well as plan catered meals and other related special events for the house. In houses with dining halls, the oversight groups would help the vendor with menu selection, relations with the house, and planning programs and events around the dining hall.

Dining Halls. The Review recommends that the following houses have dining halls: Ashdown House, Baker House, Burton-Conner, MacGregor House, McCormick Hall, and Next House. Baker and Next currently have operating dining halls. The Review recommends that McCormick's hall be reopened as soon as possible, and that the hall be a pilot program for the new dining system. MacGregor's hall should also be reopened as soon as possible. Reopening Ashdown and Burton will require substantial renovations, making these longer-term projects.

The Review recommends that dining hall hours be changed. In general, the halls would serve dinner seven nights a week during 2.5-3 hour time blocks, including during IAP (a few halls would be kept open during the summer, as well). However, dinner hours should be eliminated in Lobdell to encourage dining in the halls and through community meals. Improvements to Networks and the dining halls will satisfy the remaining need for "quick dinners."

A convenience store (like the one currently operating in MacGregor) should remain open. However, the store probably should be moved to Burton-Conner, since MacGregor probably will not have enough space to accommodate the convenience store and full kitchen facilities.

Finally, the Review recommends that Pritchett serve as a dining hall- like facility, providing dinner to residents of East Campus and Senior House.

The Review recommends that all dining halls be open to all students. We realize that issues of security are of serious concern, but we believe that the Office of Campus Dining can work with the dining halls to establish proper security programs.

Support for Personal Cooking. Dining programs will be centered around personal cooking in the following houses: Random, Bexley, East Campus, Senior House, New House, Eastgate, Westgate, Green Hall, Edgerton, and Tang. (Ashdown and Burton will be cooking houses in the short term, as well.) These houses will provide appropriate support for individual cooking, as well as run regular community meals.

Residents in all halls will be provided with convenient and secure kitchens (including some convenience kitchens provided in houses with dining halls). MIT should provide for basic kitchen maintenance in all halls. Day-to-day cleaning tasks will be required, but will vary by house. Halls could choose to have cleaning services contracted out (the cost added to house rents), form a cleaning schedule for students to share cleaning duties, or some combination thereof. The House Managers will be charged with the enforcement of the sanitation and maintenance standards.

Meal Plans. The Review strongly recommends that meal plans be made available to the MIT community. These plans would offer packages of meals at significant savings over the regular a la carte prices.

To further relieve financial burdens on students, vendors will be required to offer low-priced "value meals." These meals will include an entree, side dishes, and a beverage. They will be full, healthy meals (not "junk food") and will cost under $5.00.

The Review does not recommend required meal plans due to the current state of the MIT dining system and the negative response to this issue. The residents of a house certainly could require meal plans to build a house dining program, however.

5. Additional Programs

The Review recommends studying the feasibility of mobile food and coffee carts, to provide additional convenience to members of the MIT community.

Finally, the Review recommends that additional seating be added throughout the dining system, especially during lunch. This includes adding seating to Lobdell, renovating Walker Memorial, and adding a new dining facility to the computer science building scheduled to replace Building 20.

Graduate Students. The Muddy Charles Pub should report to the Office of Campus Dining rather than to the Dean of the Graduate School. During the day, it should focus on serving lunch to graduate students.

The Review also suggests that Ashdown House's dining hall should be used to offer programs for the entire graduate community. One possible program might be a coffeehouse / bake shop, especially in the near term (as fully renovating Ashdown's kitchens is a long term project).

Lobby 7. The Review recommends that a cafe-like service be placed in Lobby 7.

MIT Club. The Review recommends the creation of an "MIT Club" that combines the services of the old Faculty Club, the services of an Alumni Club, and the services of a catering hall. As such, the Club should serve lunch and dinner to, and provide quality event support for, faculty, staff, alumni, students, and guests of the Institute. The current Faculty Club may be designated for this purpose, or a new site may need to be identified.

The new Club would have a local oversight group with representation on the Campus Dining Board and the Alumni Office. The Club would follow the same requirements regarding sanitation, financial solvency, etc. as other dining operations on campus.

Support for Personal Cooking. The Review recommends providing certain personal cooking programs for both on and off campus students. First, MIT should establish programs that allow any student to purchase food at discount prices. It should also set up programs designed to reduce the time it takes students to purchase and prepare meals. In addition, voluntary classes in cooking and nutrition should be offered to the entire campus community.

Variety / Special Dining Needs. Vendors would be required to offer a variety of vegetarian and other foods serving special needs of the community (Kosher, for example).

Implementation Schedule

The following is a tentative schedule for the implementation of the Review's recommendations.

By July 1, 1998:

• Create and staff the Office of Campus Dinng.
• Create and staff the Campus Dining Board.
• Write standards for the dining system.
• Create the infrastructure needed to have all dining system vendors support the MIT card.
• Have all on-campus vendors (including Aramark, Daka, and the food trucks), and interested off-campus vendors, be part of the new system by July 1, 1998.

• Write new requests for proposals for the new dining zones, select new vendors, and have the new vendors ready to start service on July 1, 1999.
• Have the graduate lunch program in the Muddy Charles Pub fully operational.
• Have the McCormick Dining Hall fully operational.
• Support catered meals on a regular basis in Ashdown.
• Have the food purchasing cooperative fully operational.

• Support catered meals on regular basis in MacGregor and Burton-Conner.
• (Depending on Institutional factors.) Have the MacGregor dining hall fully operational. Move the MacGregor Convenience Store to Burton-Conner.

• Have fully operational dining halls in Ashdown and Burton-Conner.
• Have a new dining facilitiy in the CIIS building.

Statement of Needs Met

Availability	Food service facilities should be available when students are eating. During the week, dinner options are needed from 5-10 pm, lunch options are needed between 11 am - 5 pm, and some dining options are needed between 10 pm and 2 am. Dining options must be available during the weekend. The system needs additional seating and service capacity during lunch hours.	Dining hall hours will be staggered so that facilities will be open between 5-10 pm. Dining halls will be open during the weekend, IAP, and the summer. Meals will be available through delivery services or through open facilities 24 hours a day. New seating and new facilities will be added to the dining system.
Health	Time pressures should not prevent students from eating healthily. MIT should recognize that many students are on tight budgets, and must ensure that all students can afford to eat healthily. Students should not be discouraged from eating healthily by poor food quality. It should be easy to find and select nutritional meals. Healthy offerings should be of good quality. Healthy offerings should have a decent value. All MIT dining options must conform to acceptable sanitary standards.	Healthy meals will be available to students 24 hours a day. Vendors will offer nutritious "value meals." The managed competition system will foster high quality, decent value, a good variety of nutritous foods, and compliance with sanitary standards.
Personal Cooking	MIT should support acceptable nutritional, sanitary, and safety standards in personal cooking. Students who cook must have adequately maintained cooking facilities. Students need convenient access to reasonably-priced, quality groceries.	MIT will provide basic maintenance for kitchen faciliites, and will ensure that daily cleaning duties are carried out. MIT will establish buying programs that allow students to buy groceries cheaply.
Quality	MIT dining options should serve quality foods. MIT dining services should place an emphasis on substantial, "non-grease" offerings.	The managed competion system will substantially increase the quality of food offered.
Service	Campus dining services should have courteous personnel. Dining facilities should be responsive to their clientele.	Vendors will be required to provide food service training to their employees, and hold them accountable to high standards of customer service.
Social	MIT should foster social interaction in residential dining halls, campus-wide dining facilities, and personal cooking programs and facilities.	The establishment of locally-managed dining programs in all houses (whether or not they contain dining halls) will take care of this need.
Special Eating Needs	Athletes: Need nutritional options available that do not conflict with practice times (early morning, late evening, weekends). Ethnic Food: MIT dining should provide more authentic ethnic offerings in general. Kosher: Kosher options should be provided. Vegetarian: MIT dining should provide a true variety of quality vegetarian offerings. Women: MIT dining programs should cater to women's dietary needs. In particular many women need smaller portions and more low-fat offerings.	All of these needs will be written into contract requirements with the vendors.
Value	MIT food must offer a good value to all members of the MIT community, and especially to students. In particular: Full meals must be available at reasonable prices. Nutritional food must be priced reasonably. Drinks and packaged foods must be sold at standard-or-lower prices.	The managed competition system will increase the quality of food offerings, increasing value. Vendors will offer low-priced, nutritious value meals. Unfortunately, though, drinks and packaged foods won't be able to be sold at typical grocery store prices. Grocery stores can sell items much more cheaply than smaller eateries can.
Variety	MIT food services must have a true variety of offerings. Food offerings must change over time.	These requirements will be enforced by the Managed Competition system.

Questions? Comments? Ideas? Then send mail to the Institute Dining Review.