Two very necessary components of life are food and safety. Everyone needs to eat, and nobody wants to be harmed.
Students at Puget Sound who express any interest in these areas should know that there is a committee on campus for just those two things: the Food and Safety Committee.
“I never heard of it before, though,” a S.U.B. worker said.
The Food and Safety Committee was started by John Hickey, former Director of Food and Safety Services. Although both committees were not linked to begin with, Hickey had supervised both sectors and arranged to meet with members during one combined meeting.
The committee was founded because Hickey felt that students needed an opportunity to become aware of the issues on campus and express any concerns they may have. Initially there was not enough student involvement to fulfill the vision Hickey had for the committee, so an early objective was to foster more student participation.
The committee merged with ASUPS as a way to ensure that students would be involved, so they can be informed as to what is happening on campus. Eventually the committee dwindled over the past few semesters, but now it is back in full swing. The first meeting for this year was held on October 9th in Wheelock Student Center 202.
In attendance was Director of Dining Services Terry Halvorson, Director of Security Todd Badham, Assistant Director for Catering Phillip Wells, as well as students from the junior, sophomore and freshman class and ASUPS Vice President Rachel Borsini. Together everyone spoke about what the committee should take part in this year and how it has evolved since its past inception. Each meeting will have a current report about what is going on around campus, whether it is security or food related.
Badham brought up many key points on the topic of security. He explained that the largest percent of residents on Puget Sound campus are new students, and with this new environment comes little experience.
He urged students to have an increased awareness to what they do with their possessions and who happens to be around them, especially because Puget Sound is such an open campus to the neighboring community. Most times when items go missing the assumption is to look for the closest student who may have displaced it, but there is also a larger population of people who use and interact with campus on a daily basis that students should be aware of. Badham mentioned that bike thefts are high. “If you’re not using a U-Bolt, you’re out of luck,” he advised.
Dining Services is planning a large renovation of the kitchen space this year. The talk is that the expansion will allow for more storage space and potentially new ways to increase food variety at the SUB. Students who have further ideas or would like to find out more about the plans being worked on can attend the next Food and Safety Committee meeting on November 6th at WSC202 starting at 12:30pm.
Rachel Borsini said that one of the purposes of the committee is to address concerns and improve campus with student input in regards to food and safety. She mentioned that it’s helpful to see the reports so that way people can see what Puget Sound needs to work on and what it’s doing well. In the future she would like to see the committee continue to meet on a regular basis and strive to complete 1 or 2 projects around campus each semester.
Have a concern about something on campus? Want to stay up to date on the latest occurrence? Stop by the Food and Safety Committee meetings every other Tuesday in WSC202.
