Crowding has already become an issue during the first full week of classes as students struggle to eat meals comfortably.
Between 6 p.m. and 7:45 p.m., the cafeteria has seen massive crowds, said Scott Curtner, director of Clark Dining Hall. “I’ve seen people sitting in the hallway by the bathrooms, on the edge of the counters, in the window sills,” he said.
“We know we have a lot of people who want to eat here,” he said. “We’re limited to the number of seats.”
Students have been greatly affected by these difficulties.
“When I can’t find a seat, it is kind of depressing,” Justin Outlaw, a freshman, said. “I come with four people. We usually wait until we see an opening and swoop in.”
Chris Love, a freshman in political science, had a similar experience. “You just kind of have to wait. You get your plate and camp out by the drink machines. When a table gets open, you move there and don’t stop,” Love, who has waited as long as fifteen minutes for a seat, said.
Curtner said the drastic changes have been largely due to the increased number of students on the meal plan. About 1480 students come to dinner each night in Clark, which only has seating for around 240. That means turning over those chairs five times in four hours.
“If a restaurant could do that, they’d be real happy,” Curtner said.
Compared to last year, dinner sees two hundred more students in the dining hall, while lunch sees around one hundred more.
“The problem is we’re seeing more and more people signing up for the meal plan,” Curtner said. In the current economy, many students may prefer the value of the meal plan, he said.
This is not a new problem. Eight years ago, Fountain experienced similar crowding, which paved the way for Clark to be built. This time, however, the solution will not involve another building.
“We’re ordering more seats and chairs,” Curtner said. The new seating will be ordered this week, starting the months-long process of outfitting Clark to meet the new demands. All together, the changes, which include replacing a long counter with another bar, will add at least 28 more seats, Curtner said.
Clark will be putting up rented tables while they wait for the ordered seating to arrive, hopefully decreasing the logjam seen this past week, Curtner said. Yet, even with these renovations, crowding at certain times is inevitable.
“We’re still going to have people who don’t have seats,” Curtner said.
Cashier Stephanie Burnett offered her own unique solution to this problem. “[The dining hall] can’t be bigger; students have got to learn to sit with each other,” she said.
Ultimately, space alone will not solve either issue of crowding. Students will continue to rely on their own ingenuity to overcome these problems, whether finding other tutors or becoming acquainted with other diners in order to find a place to eat.
