Focus groups help decide on renovations for Davis Dining Hall

By Ali Pavlicek
Western Herald

When students leave Western Michigan University at the end of February for spring break, renovations will begin on Davis Dining Hall. Davis Dining will subsequently be closed from Mar. 1, 2010 until Aug. 31, 2010.

Before renovations begin, Dining Services has been seeking student feedback about making changes to the dining hall. Dining Services compiled past survey results, hosted focus groups, and continues to listen to input on the project.

The first focus group was on Nov. 12, and the discussion was held right in the Davis Dining Hall. Peg Corbin, Davis Dining manager, Judy Gipper, Dining Services director, and Eleonora Philopoulos, the renovation project manager, presented information to students pertaining to all aspects of Davis’ renovations.

Results were revealed from a prior student poll for the preferred design. The voting took place on Sept. 24 and 25, and the winning categories will be figured into the interior design elements, such as color options, flooring, textures, and different kinds of seating.

“A presentation was put out of different [design] styles of modern, traditional, cyber café, [and] natural,” Corbin said. “There were eight different things, and students could vote.”

However, all design categories had almost equal votes, with only small differences between them.

Before a discussion was opened for questions and answers, Philopoulos also shared students’ fall survey results.

With these considerations, changes to the facility will include a variety of seating options, such as booths, stools, and chairs, along with in-sight food preparation, and a variety of food stations for a modern dining experience.

“We really want people to walk around, navigate, and have something different,” Philopoulos said.

More outlets to plug in laptops, decorative artwork, and an attached bathroom are also planned.

To elaborate more on the food aspect, Gipper introduced the proposed stations throughout the facility, such as the “Chef’s Table,” where home-style foods, hot breakfast, and “fire and ice” stir-fry selections can be cooked. Other stations arranged on the floor plan are a grilled foods area, a sandwich counter, pizza, pasta, soup, and salad stations, and a new bakery/café concept for freshly baked delicacies, hand-dipped ice cream, and individual smoothies and coffee drinks.

“Our main focus is to offer older returning students something different that they can’t get in another cafeteria,” Corbin said.

Corbin explained that this doesn’t just mean a new facility, but changes in food too. A more one on one cooking experience will be available for diners; yet hot and ready dishes will remain for those who are in a hurry.

To get to this stage in the renovations, much planning and preparatory work was required long before any plans were finalized. Corbin said that the Dining Services staff traveled to other universities, including Michigan State University, Ferris State University, Grand Valley State University, and Kalamazoo College, to see what was being offered.

Over the years, Davis Dining Hall has hosted many firsts among WMU dining, such as having self-service food lines, a completely tray-less cafeteria, and electric salad bars. Corbin said that the dining halls rotated for renovation projects, and now is the time for Davis to get a change.

“Right now I think it is a remake of another generation,” Gipper said. “It’s had a lot of updating without a fundamental change.”

Gipper said she’s noticed that students are more social over their food, and she plans to transform the facility into a total contemporary dining space. She wants students to embrace the renovation of Davis Dining Hall.

“I want to be sure that students have a voice, and I want to make it as easy as I can [for them],” Gipper said. “I have a strong belief that the students here are common sense type people who are realistic in their approach.”

So far, while renovation information is becoming public, Corbin said that she has noticed overall excitement among the students eating in the dining hall. A design has been displayed for students as a generalized floor plan, and a 3D visualization was presented at the focus group to help students better conceptualize the project.

Students who typically eat in Davis Dining Hall consist of residents from the “Little Three” complex, which includes Davis, French, and Zimmerman Halls. These residents will become more familiar with the renovations as postings, letters, and e-mails get distributed, along with a general student Web site that will be available soon with a link from the Dining Services’ site.

“We want to be sure that the people who [the renovation] affects are the first to know,” Gipper said.

Sean Foulkes, a junior majoring in physical education lives in the “Little Three” complex and also works in Davis Dining Hall.

“Once they have the cafe operational, it will bring more individuals from the ‘Little Three’ complex to Davis Dining,” Foulkes said. “I feel that there’s going to be more chaos than [Dining Services] feels, but they will be able to handle [the] chaos with the facility.”

Since Davis Dining Hall will discontinue all of its services after spring break, Dining Services is looking to students to help make the transition to other dining halls as smoothly as possible. Gipper mentioned possibilities, such as relocating the Garden Wok vegetarian stir-fry to the Burnhams and increasing staff at other dining halls, where demand may increase.

“I enjoy dining at Davis, and having to trek elsewhere is one of those situations where I’m just going to have to walk for six weeks,” Foulkes said.

The renovations will most likely not effect Foulkes’s dining plan next year, since he said that his frequency of visiting Davis dining will depend on where he lives at the time.

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Posted by heraldstaff on Nov 16 2009. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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