While the novelty of the just-completed Whitman College dining hall and renovated spaces at Rocky-Mathey have attracted students from across campus, Wilcox and Wu dining halls have been consistently empty since the beginning of the academic year.
Butler and Wilson College residents have been forgoing the traditional fare and atmosphere of their own dining halls for the novelties of Whitman and Rocky-Mathey.
Meals that used to attract around 250 students to Wu now barely reach 50, said Jordan Bubin '09, student dining services manager, gesturing to the scant number of students seated at the Wilcox tables around him.
"It's the same sort of thing on each side [of the Butler/Wilson kitchen]," Bubin said. "They're both basically empty — and equally empty."
Dining Services knows that Butler and Wilson have become less attractive this year, department director Stu Orefice said. But dining workers are in the process of making the dining halls more attractive.
"We hope to add some of the treatments and future selections over the course of the year to enhance the current options," he said in an email. "We recognize the current layout presents challenges, but our culinary team at Butler and Wilson is designing some creative menus this fall to compete with some of the offerings that are available in new dining serving areas."
Noreen Tucker, a worker at Wu, said that in spite of the improved menu and various options, students are making a conscious decision to avoid eating at Butler.
"Nobody's coming here to test our food out," she said. "We have more people going over [to Whitman] than here."
Such inequality among the dining halls has led to speculation over potential cost-cutting measures. If the current conditions persist, Bubin said he thinks Butler and Wilson will have no choice but to enact changes to stay within their already-fixed budgets.
"If it stays like this, they'll be cutting staff here officially," he said.
Tucker said she couldn't speculate on whether staff would be cut, but she hopes that the low numbers don't result in a shift of personnel from Wu and Wilcox to other dining halls. "I hope [they] don't close us down and ... force us to work somewhere else," Tucker said.
The overcrowding at Whitman, however, has already triggered transfers of dining hall workers. As new student workers at Whitman are being trained and grill workers are barraged with orders, both students and professionals from Wu and Wilcox have gone over to help, Bubin said. "They've really sucked a lot of the manpower from the dining halls."
Wilson RCA Cameron Lloyd '09, though, said he doesn't blame students for opting for the new dining halls. "This looks like my elementary school dining hall ... and it overlooks a construction zone, whereas Whitman looks like a castle with full-grown trees," he said. "You're paying the same amount [for] room and board, and you're getting a different freshman experience."
Several of his advisees, he added, have told him that they eat half their meals at dining halls other than Wilcox.
This year Dining Services began allowing chefs to craft their own distinct menus for their colleges. For Butler and Wilson, though, Bubin said, even this has failed to overcome the novelty and multiplicity of the other colleges' serveries.
"They definitely have a spirit of competition," he said, noting that student pressure has led to plans to establish a hummus bar at Wu and Wilcox. He added, however, that a lot of energy is being spent on accommodating the large numbers of students at other dining halls. "They're mostly just trying to help out Whitman."
Tucker said that students should give Wu and Wilcox a chance to demonstrate their own unique, updated offerings.
"Every day [at Butler and Wilson] they have a good meal: different things on the hot line, different things on the salad bar," she said, explaining that she thinks students should move around and take advantage of the different options presented by the residential college system.
"Give us some of the props as well," she added.
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