By Henri Gendreau
Those who find themselves hungry on a Saturday afternoon in Peirce neednt starve any longer. On Monday, the Housing and Dining Committee hashed out a proposal that would establish extended lunch hours at the Peirce servery on Saturdays from 1:00 to 3:30 p.m. if it garners enough support from students, AVI Foodsystems, Inc and the College administration.
In order to offset the cost of providing this extension, the Committees plan would shorten continental breakfast and extended lunch hours on weekdays. Under the proposal, continental breakfast would end at 10:15 a.m. instead of at 10:30 a.m. and weekday extendo would end at 4:15 p.m. instead of at 4:30 p.m. In all, reallocating those 2.5 hours would allow for a longer lunch period on Saturdays.
The single most common complaint Ive heard about Peirce is the lack of extendo hours on Saturday, said Tommy Brown 13, who chairs the Housing and Dining Committee. That being said, its always kind of difficult to change the status quo. I wouldnt be entirely surprised if it doesnt pass but I think its pretty likely.
If approved, the changes would likely go into effect in the fall of the 2013 academic year.
Once a formal proposal is submitted to AVI and approved, the Committee will send out a campus-wide survey sometime next semester to learn what students think about the changes. The survey will also include questions about service selection, which will give students the chance to offer general feedback about Peirce and AVI. If results indicate that a majority of students favor the extendo change, the proposal will be submitted to the College, which has the final say in determining Peirces hours.
The original proposal, which the Committee devised last week, cut the weekday extendo end-time from 4:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., with no change to continental breakfast. But after Brown discussed the possibility of establishing extendo hours on Saturday with Damon Remillard, resident district manager of AVI, the Committee adopted the current proposal to lessen the impact on those who rely on food service after 4:00 p.m. and before dinner. Brown said the finalized proposal would better accommodate those who, for example, get out of a class at 4:00 p.m. and want to head to Peirce.
As exciting as it is to have extendo on Saturday, it also means limiting it during the week, which is a big deal, Remillard said. The schools cautious to change anything programmatically because it does affect people. Its something that we have to be very conscious of. Indeed, Remillard remains hesitant about altering a schedule on which so many students rely. I think its a bigger thing to take away something from someone that they already have, he said. To make a change I think you really have to have a vast majority of people saying that they want this.
While Brown remains hopeful that common ground can be found in any changes, he noted, Whatever we decide on, somebodys going to be mad. Brown encouraged those with an opinion on the proposal to contact the Committee at housinganddining@kenyon.edu. Were always open to feedback, he said. The reason were doing this is because students told us its what they want and so, with any luck, well have a good response rate, and if this is what students want, it will be put into effect.
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