Isabelle Bryson
Reporter
The lack of communication and no social media presence from the cafeteria has caused many Crowder College students to be confused about cafeteria rules, updates, and opportunities.
In today’s world, communication is everyone’s top priority. We can communicate through so many ways now. The most popular form of communication is through social media. To keep up with our fast-growing society, colleges are adjusting their forms of communication to better serve their students. However, Crowder College’s cafeteria has not caught on with the time.
College students range from ages 18-22; these are prime ages where many of us are very active and need food to supply the energy to get through days of classes, sports practices, theatre rehearsals, and whatever the aggies are doing in the big barn of theirs. Many that eat in the cafeteria live on campus as full-time students, meaning they take 12+ hours of classes.
Many students find themselves dedicating their time to classes and extracurriculars before anything. It is so much easier for a college student to plan their meals around their classes rather than to plan their classes around times to eat. However, with limited cafeteria hours, this is what many students resort to doing.
Ellie Enlow a dorm student states, “I live on campus and have a full access plan, but on Wednesdays I have to provide myself a meal or not eat lunch because I have classes during the cafeteria’s lunch hours.” Why should students pay full price meal plans if they cannot even find time to eat?
What are the rules though? If the rules are not labeled in the student handbook or the college’s online homepage, how do students or the public know what they can or cannot do in the cafeteria?
The cafeteria has a poster listing a few rules:
- Be respectful to others
- Inappropriate language will not be tolerated
- You must present your ID to eat
- Return your trays to the dish-room area
- Do not remove dishes or silverware from the cafeteria
- No food or drink is to be taken out of the cafeteria
According to Teddy Jones, Assistant Director, in addition to these rules, their corporate has changed the rule about taking food out of the cafeteria and is allowing one ice cream item to be taken out of the cafeteria and just added that one fruit item may also be taken out.
Also, during snow days, students must rely on what the cafeteria workers tell them the day before when they will be open or trudge through snow to read the paper they have taped to the cafeteria door. That is not a good method of communication, but the cafeteria is doing the best they can. The cafeteria employees are hard workers, providing hot meals for the public, faculty, and students and even know you by name, but it is time for a communication change.
Gary Jones, Food Service Director, and Teddy Jones, Assistant Director, explained that Crowder students who do not have time to stop in to eat a meal can let them know about their situation and provide documentation of their conflict and the cafeteria will fix a to-go box for them.
However, for students in general, the cafeteria is not allowed to provide them with to-go boxes because of Health Department regulations.
When asked about providing cafeteria information on social media, Gary Jones said, “I wish I could come in here (his office) and type up the information and send it to the students. We tried to send information to students through email, but Crowder stopped us from doing that because we were contacting students in other Crowder locations, where we are not affiliated.” Jones continued stating that they are working with Crowder to create a way to only contact Neosho students.
Those eating in the Crowder College cafeteria do not know many rules and only learn them by breaking them. Because the cafeteria is not actually affiliated with Crowder, but a business hired by Crowder, their rules and method of communication is different. To help both those who eat in the cafeteria and the cafeteria staff, a better method of communication is needed.
Communication travels two ways. Students and public who want to learn the rules or not get in trouble because they do not know the rules should ask the cafeteria staff in-person. This way the staff can clarify what they can and cannot do in the cafeteria. The cafeteria management would much rather talk with you about their rules than to get on to you for breaking them, they said.
Teddy Jones stated, “We love talking with students and hearing about the issues or ideas that they have for us. We are here to serve them, and we want them to have the best food and service while they are away from home.”
In addition to face-to-face conversations, students look online to get their information. Students can find school cancelations, college events, fundraisers and so much more just by looking at their email, social media, or the Crowder website. With the cafeteria not a part of Crowder students cannot find much information for the cafeteria from anywhere except the cafeteria employees themselves.
Because of being under Crowder rules and regulations the cafeteria is restricted from posting on social media. Crowder and the cafeteria are working together to create a better form of communication for the Neosho campus students.
Having an online form of communication would help both the cafeteria employees and students. The employees would not have to worry about telling the students the rules or snow day times and students would have an easy way to find the rules, updates, and menus if the cafeteria posted regularly on the Crowder homepage or on social media.
In addition to online communication, Crowder is working towards a class-free time slot for the upcoming fall semester, so students will not have any classes that interfere with the cafeteria lunch hours. This is going to help students have time for lunch and allow the cafeteria staff to not worry about students even needing to-go boxes.
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