Forbes dining hall to close on Saturdays

On Monday evening, Forbes College Master Christian Wildberg and Whitman College Master Harvey Rosen sent e-mails to students in their colleges informing them of the decision.

These Saturday closings are the latest casualty of the Princeton budget cuts, though Klaus declined to comment on how much money the University would save through this move.

Wildberg explained that general plans for the change were formed last spring, but the implementation of the plan was left to officials in the Department of Dining Services. In an interview before he sent his e-mail, Wildberg noted that he was not “officially told” by Dining Services that the plans were being implemented and saw “no need” to inform members of the college community at this point. “After all, the semester has hardly begun,” he said.

Wildberg added that he believed the lack of earlier communication to students regarding the change was “perhaps an oversight” on the part of Dining Services and that administrators had “no intention to hide anything.”

The change is being delayed until October to give students time to adjust to the residential college system, Klaus said.

The Forbes and Whitman dining halls were selected for the closures because each is serviced by its own kitchen, unlike Rocky-Mathey and Wu-Wilcox dining halls, he explained.

On the days when Forbes is closed, the dining hall staff in Forbes will work in Whitman, said Sally Kornegay, a worker in the Forbes dining hall.

Kornegay explained that the University “doesn’t want to run into layoffs.” Rather than firing workers, it will close a dining hall and reduce the overhead costs associated with keeping a dining hall and a kitchen open.

Wildberg explained that closing the dining hall on Saturdays was “the most palatable option” for saving money.

“All other options would impact the dining experience more negatively,” he explained.

The alternatives included serving less expensive and lower quality food and cutting certain parts of meals. Some of these measures have already been implemented at other universities. For instance, starting this year, Harvard has eliminated hot breakfast items in response to budget cuts.

Rosen sent an e-mail to Whitman residents on Monday evening announcing that the Whitman dining hall would close Saturdays in the spring semester.

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“In order to deal with our diminished budget, one measure we are taking is to share our meals on Saturdays with the students of our sister college, Forbes,” he said in the e-mail, adding that both dining halls will be open on the Saturday of Parents’ Weekend.

“My colleagues and I agreed to this approach, introduced on an experimental basis, in order to avoid other possible measures, such as abolishing breakfast or lowering the quality of the ingredients, all of which stood to affect your overall dining experience in a more serious way,” Rosen said. “I hope that you will not find the new regime too onerous.”

Some students who work in Forbes dining hall on Saturdays said they would be inconvenienced by the change.

Marcus Theus ’12 said he preferred to work Saturdays, but the change means that he will be forced to work Thursdays, which are less convenient for him.

“Many Forbes dining hall workers are seeking jobs in other dining halls,” Daniel Humphrey ’12 said. Humphrey, who works for the dining hall shared by Rocky and Mathey and lives in Forbes, explained that many of his Forbesian friends have asked him to help them find jobs at Rocky-Mathey.

For Sabrina Szeto ’12, the end of Saturday meals at Forbes means the end of bonding with the dining hall workers, which she said she enjoyed.

“I’m sad to see it go. I’m going to miss it,” Szeto said. “When the dining hall is empty and we have our meal together … we [make] this connection.”

She explained the Forbes dining hall workers are different from workers in other dining halls because of their bond.

“There are less workers on Saturdays in the back,” she said. “So students have to work in the back, loading dishes. We have a chance to chat and build our bond.”

Other Forbesians who do not work in the dining halls, however, said they did not mind the change.

“It’s not too bad,” Gal Oshri ’13 noted. “It’s a Saturday. There are no classes, so we have time to go to Whitman for meals.”