by Sean Doherty, Student Reporter
Safety is a priority every semester, but preparing for the fall 2020 semester posed its own set of unique challenges.
Northwestern Oklahoma State University and its food service provider, Chartwells, worked together to implement new safety precautions and procedures in Coronado Cafe and the Ranger C-Store. Chartwells set out a “Path to Open” in May 2020, a four-tiered program to help universities around the country ensure their students’ well-being. NWOSU chose to stay as close to the college experience as possible while safeguarding students and staff from COVID-19, officials said.
“The first step was reducing the number of items students touch,” Charles Craddock, Chartwells’ director of dining service, said. Craddock estimates items such as serving spoons and tongs run through the hands of hundreds of students a day.
Chartwells and NWOSU tackled this problem in two ways. Chartwells associates now undergo a temperature check before every shift. Also, they wear gloves and masks while cooking, preparing and serving food.
Craddock and his staff removed all self-serve stations, and placed Plexiglas at every station to protect both servers and Northwestern students and staff.
Waffles are still available at the omelet station, and customers can request pre-packaged salads. The self-serve sandwich station is gone, but Craddock says various sandwiches will be available throughout the semester.
Although there are fewer stations than before, Chartwells had to hire more staff to keep up with safety demands.
“We’ve put another 5% of labor into the establishment,” Tully Groom, head chef at Coronado Café, said. Chartwells hired three more serving staff and five more utility personnel. These utility personnel are in charge of keeping the cafeteria sanitary. They wipe down tables after students leave and clean the fountain drink dispenser every 30 minutes with a disinfectant.
According to
Craddock, the disinfectant will kill viruses without being harmful to humans.
“I wouldn’t drink it, but it’s pretty benign,” Craddock said.
After lunch, utility personnel spray the tables and chairs down with a heavier duty disinfectant, then again after dinner.
Serving students is just one piece of the puzzle. What about the periods before and after students get their food?
The C-Store now limits occupancy to 25 people at a time. Customers have to wear masks and practice social distancing.
Coronado Cafe usually seats around 300 people. University officials and Craddock decided to slash that number in half, with only 155 seats now available. Students enter and exit out of different doors, a change likely to stay in place for the foreseeable future, Craddock said.
Chartwells personnel swipe students’ meal cards, and students receive their cups and silverware in sleeves. Cups and silverware then go through a washing and packaging process after use.
Craddock and other NWOSU officials are looking at ways to prevent students from standing in long lines to get their food, including adjusting lunch hours and possibly offering outdoor seating.
“If we have to expand lunch hour, we will, to make sure all students get fed,” Craddock said.
If students or staff do not wish to sit in the dining area, Coronado Cafe now gives patrons the option to take their meals to-go.
“The to-go option, I think, is the key,” Craddock said. “It gives the student more flexibility than they used to have.”
Students and staff can specify whether they want their meals to-go after swiping their meal cards. To-go orders come with a paper cup and pre-packaged silverware along with one to-go container. Patrons can then fill their containers with whatever they wish, but each patron may only receive one container per meal. Customers can also buy a reusable container for $5.00. Craddock said he urges students not to abuse this option or it will no longer be offered.
STUDENTS VOICE
THEIR OPINIONS
An anonymous survey conducted by Chartwells reached 30 students and asked them to rate Coronado Café’s and Ranger Mart’s overall responses to COVID-19. The survey asked students to rate both entities’ performance in categories such as cleanliness, service and social distancing. The survey also asked if students used the to-go option.
From a scale of 1 to 5, 63% of students surveyed gave the dining hall and C-Store an overall rating of 5; 13% gave a rating of 4; 23% gave a rating of 3.
For the performance categories, students had five options: “Very poor,” “poor,” “fair,” “good” and “excellent.”
For cleanliness, 60% answered “excellent,” 36.7% answered “good” and 3.3 % answered “fair.”
For service, 73.3% answered “excellent,” 20% answered “good” and 6.7% answered “fair.” In the social distancing category, 43.3% answered “excellent,” 33.3% answered “good,” 20% answered “fair,” and 3.3% answered “poor.”
Half of the students answering the survey had not utilized the to-go option, and two were unaware it was available.
Students said they have varying opinions on the new safety restrictions.
“I like the café, and I think they’re doing the best they can with COVID-19,” Madison Dehlinger, a junior psychology major from Eureka, Kansas, and a member of the NWOSU volleyball team, said.
“It’s not much different, it just takes some getting used to,” Brody Snow, a junior agriculture major from Maryville, Missouri, and a member of the NWOSU rodeo team, said.
Some students said they did not have positive attitudes towards the dining hall’s new rules; however, they said they did not wish to go on the record to discuss them.
Craddock said he is open to suggestions regarding safety procedures, and said that any students or staff members wishing to submit their comments or concerns should read the Text2Chat posters in Coronado Café to find contact information.
“We hope that we’ve reduced the amount of opportunities for anybody to catch the COVID-19 virus or any other disease,” Craddock said. “I’m hoping we’ve made some pretty good advances.”