A document detailing the University’s needs to prospective food service providers is currently being drafted as part of the process to find a company to run the University’s dining services. A change in the administrator assigned to compose the list will delay the selection of a provider until the winter.
The new administrator, hospitality industries consultant Peg Rodger, is currently seeking student feedback about dining on campus through a series of focus groups.
Rodger has been speaking with administrators and students to gather information for the Request for Proposals (RFP).
“She is on campus [this week] to conduct focus groups in order to get a more complete picture of what students want from the new dining program,” said Zelda Ferguson ’06, a member of the Dining Committee. “Peg is going to take these discussions and the Concept of Dining statement as the basis for her request for proposals.”
The Concept of Dining Purpose statement, which Ferguson co-authored with Max Ornstein ’09, lays out a general plan for student demands in dining and will be part of the input behind the RFP. The focus groups will provide the opportunity to gather more specifics, according to Ferguson.
“The main focus of the Concept of Dining statement was increased flexibility,” Ferguson said. “I think that Peg wants more specific information about what works currently and what students want to see in the future at the University Center in particular.”
After the resignation of Director of Auxiliary Services Manny Cunard, Rodger has been hired to put together a RFP to determine the University’s future food service provider. The RFP will go out next fall and bids from competing companies will be evaluated during the fall semester. If all goes according to plan, a food service provider will be selected by next winter.
The new timeline is a change from the one that was in place before Cunard’s resignation. Cunard would have written RFP and the bid process would have been completed by next fall.
Chair of the Dining Committee and the WSA Finances and Facilities Committee Gabe Tabak ’06 said that the slower timeline is not a serious concern.
“It had always been an ambitious timeline,” said Tabak. “It will give next year’s student government more time to evaluate the pros and cons of each [dining services] option.”
The RFP will outline the dining needs of the University community. When it is released in the fall, food service providers, including Aramark, will have the opportunity to submit bids and proposals for how they would meet those needs and a food service provider will be selected based on the bid.
Rodger will work to ensure that University’s RFP is considered by as many national and regional vendors as possible.
“We want to have some competition,” said Vice President and Secretary of the University Peter Patton.
After the bids have been evaluated and a vendor selected, the vendor will be able to use the spring and summer to move in and finalize the kitchen facilities, including the new ones to be built in the Usdan University Center.
Rodger is a principal at Envision Strategies, a hospitality industries consulting firm. She has worked with the University since the beginning of the dining planning process and has worked on campus in the past.
“She’s actually pretty familiar with the Wesleyan campus and what facilities we have,” University Center Director Rick Culliton said.
“We’re really glad to have Peggy helping us because she’s done this all over the country,” Patton said.
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