Surveys show that Guilford students are most satisfied with their academic experience, while they find student life the least satisfying, Kent Chabotar reported when he visited the Community Senate meeting Wednesday night.

Chabotar attended the 6:00 p.m. meeting in the Gallery to take student questions and concerns about the college and a present Guilford’s latest initiative to develop a strategic long-range plan. He had made a more extensive presentation on the long-range plan at the faculty meeting earlier that afternoon.

“I thought the questions were tough, I thought the follow up questions were fair,” Chabotar said about his impressions on the Senate meeting.

“It has given me some additional food for thought, especially in terms of some specific concerns about the cafeteria I did not know about before.”

The college meal plan was the issue that generated the most questions from students, particularly about what is being done to improve the quality of the food, and possible changes to the plan in the works for next year.

Chabotar began by saying that there had been changes made so far in areas such as hours of operation and range of options, though not necessarily all of them good.

“My problem with the cafeteria, sometimes it’s too uneven,” Chabotar said. “Sometimes, I go in and the meal is not too bad at all. Other times I go in I’m going, huh?”

Chabotar said he felt the problem of food quality did not stem from the food itself so much as the equipment in the cafeteria.

“We’ve got steamers there that are 40 years old,” Chabotar said. He indicated that new steamers had been ordered, but the wrong ones had arrived, so new ones had to be ordered. “That’s a screw up which I have to take responsibility for because I am here. They should have been in place way before now.”

“Last fall we made some commitments to get them here,” Chabotar said. “Now they have been ordered; they will be installed, but they are late.” He also said the problems in the cafeteria were multifaceted, citing staff training as another area that needed further attention.

Chabotar, who as an administrator oversaw the college cafeteria at Bowdoin for 11 years, which he said numerous surveys have rated one of the best in the country, also cited staff morale as another area that needed addressing to improve cafeteria service.

“We need to do a better job of instilling pride,” Chabotar said.

Staff at Bowdoin believed they were the best, Chabotar said, and therefore were willing to accept constructive criticism on how they could provide a better service. Chabotar hopes to bring that attitude to staff at Guilford. Alternately, he said, if the cafeteria staff are always receiving negative feedback, particularly about some areas over which they had no control, it can have an impact on staff pride, which in turn affects performance.

Chabotar said he was not surprised by the multitude of questions regarding the cafeteria, noting there has been a lot of public focus on the meal plan recently, including Cafeteria Manager Vance Whittlesey’s visit to the Senate Meeting last week.

Regarding changes to the meal plan next year, Chabotar indicated that there would probably be three options for students, all likely to be priced the same. He indicated he hoped that in subsequent years, different plans would have different prices. He also addressed the question of whether the meal plan would be universal next year.

“I’m not sure that we necessarily have to have everyone on campus on the meal plan,” Chabotar said.

He indicated there was discussion about designating part of campus housing as off the meal plan to give students the option to live on-campus and be off the plan, an option available to students in recent years with the campus apartments.

He cited the apartments and theme houses as the likely candidates for off-the-meal-plan housing, since both are equipped with kitchens, although he indicated that probably one or the other would be off the plan, rather than both.

Another possibility would be to split the off-the-meal-plan housing between some apartments and some theme houses. Chabotar stressed that nothing had been finalized yet, though he wants the plan in place in time for students to evaluate their options before they sign up for housing next year, “and I don’t want to do it the night before.”

Chabotar indicated there would be some streamlining to the process of reviewing requests to get off the meal plan.

“Right now it is a sieve to get off the meal plan,” Chabotar said. “For good reason, because some people are dissatisfied with it.”

“Guilford’s rules are far more liberal than any other college,” Chabotar continued, saying that Guilford had 150 people off the meal plan, something that was “unheard of.”

He also indicated that in the long-term he would consider in-sourcing the college’s food operations, with the cafeteria entirely staffed and managed by the college, if a more desirable plan could not be worked out with Sodexho. The cafeteria Chabotar oversaw at Bowdin was an in-house operation.

Chabotar said he wanted to have preestablished performance standards in the contract with Sodexho for the coming year, saying that at the end of the year, the college would evaluate Sodexho’s performance.

Campus Living

Another issue that students asked Chabotar about was campus housing.

“Guilford has had a financial problem for years,” Chabotar said, and one tactic was not to spend money in any sufficient quantity on maintaining the dormitories.

“Milner is the worst.”

Chabotar said the college is looking to reallocate funds over the next two summers for both aesthetic and infrastructure work on buildings, including dormitories, and indicated the plans would probably be worked out shortly after spring break.

“We’re not going to spend money on new buildings until we fix the ones we have,” Chabotar said.