NC State Dining has reopened One Earth World Cuisine in a dining hall capacity for the spring semester due to Clark Dining Hall being repurposed as a COVID-19 surveillance testing site. According to Shawn Hoch, senior director of dining and hospitality, One Earth World Cuisine in Talley Student Union is a secondary dining hall location in addition to Fountain Dining Hall.
One Earth operated as the primary dining hall for students who remained on campus throughout the fall semester. According to Jennifer Gilmore, director of marketing and communication for Campus Enterprises, the decision to reopen came after University Housing relocated many student residents to the east side of campus due to flooding in Bragaw Hall.
“Originally, most students were going to be on the west side,” Gilmore said. “But when Bragaw all went offline for the spring due to flooding and housing needed to move students over to the eastern part of campus, we decided that it was important to bring One Earth back for a second semester in a dining hall capacity.”
Both Fountain and One Earth dining halls have incorporated practices to ensure compliance with NC State community standards for COVID-19. Employees are expected to social distance in the kitchen when possible, and each location, like last semester, closes two times daily for thorough cleaning and sanitizing.
Since these new protocols limit employees’ ability to work in teams, they necessitate more labor hours for the same amount of work, according to Scott Curtner, director of Clark Dining. The protocols require increased staff in both Talley Student Union and Fountain Dining Hall, which are often, as in Curtner’s case, pulled from inactive dining locations to allow for fewer layoffs.
In addition to increased protocols within dining halls, administration substantially decreased the amount of indoor seating available to students to discourage large groups from eating inside. The seating left inside is intentionally arranged to maintain physical distance between students eating with their masks off. According to Gilmore, the reduced seating encourages students to utilize to-go containers and eat elsewhere.
Despite the changes however, there are still concerns about students eating inside in close proximity, particularly during the colder winter months.
“What we’re seeing is that people ignore the community standards, with students moving rearranged furniture around,” Curtner said. “Then you’ve got [a] handful of people sitting around the table not maintaining the community standards of 6 feet eating together. That has a negative effect for sure.”
Despite the changes, dining staff continue to provide a variety of meal options for students on campus. According to Lauren Smith, director of nutrition and wellness, both dining halls continue to have regular dietary accommodations available, including daily vegan and vegetarian options through the homestyle line and gluten-free products from the worry-free station.
The current dining hall arrangement is expected to stay in place at least through the remainder of the spring semester.
“Our goal is to provide the very best service we can for students within our capability at this time,” Gilmore said. “[The changes] allow us to do our very best for students, giving [them] a lot of variety with a smaller footprint.”
