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OT: Suites Dining - simscitizen - 02-22-2013

Not sports-related at all, but I just read this and thought it was one of the better articles (or series of articles) that I've ever read in the Daily:

http://www.stanforddaily.com/2013/02/21/1075160/

Re: OT: Suites Dining - fullmetal - 02-22-2013

Excellent article describing a terrifyingly Orwellian situation.  The management of ResEd and dining services seems to have fallen off a cliff since I graduated (less than 10 yrs ago), and this nefarious family connection between the two brothers-in-law to land the SOS bid is downright unethical if not evil (in a greedy, selfish way). 

I wonder if it would be appropriate to disseminate this sort of Daily article through alumni clubs.

Re: OT: Suites Dining - Spiny_Norman - 02-22-2013

A similar story to the abolition of the Toyon Eating Clubs in 2009-2010.  The Stanford Eating Clubs were founded in the 1890s and had existed at the current site next to Toyon (or in that vicinity) since 1912.  But ResEd threw 100 years of history out the window when they closed the eating clubs and moved Toyon to a newly-constructed university food service building.

I was a member of the eating clubs for three years.  They were a rich part of my Stanford experience and I was very sorry to see them go.

Re: OT: Suites Dining - Nan3cy - 02-22-2013

I hadn't even heard that the Toyon eating clubs had been abolished. I hung out at the L a lot in undergraduate school -- married a Toro after we graduated. (That didn't work out so well, but I'm still very fond of a bunch of the guys... :P)


Re: OT: Suites Dining - stan01 - 02-24-2013

(02-22-2013, 04:00 PM)Spiny_Norman link Wrote:A similar story to the abolition of the Toyon Eating Clubs in 2009-2010.  The Stanford Eating Clubs were founded in the 1890s and had existed at the current site next to Toyon (or in that vicinity) since 1912.  But ResEd threw 100 years of history out the window when they closed the eating clubs and moved Toyon to a newly-constructed university food service building.

I was a member of the eating clubs for three years.  They were a rich part of my Stanford experience and I was very sorry to see them go.

That's terrible!  Some of my best Stanford memories happened at the Eating Clubs as well, not to mention we were better fed than the poor folks stuck with university dining. 


Re: OT: Suites Dining - fullmetal - 02-24-2013

Is it foolish to think that alumni might hold some sway over willy-nilly, semi-malevolent decision making that results in these inefficient substitutes for good things?

Re: OT: Suites Dining - stan01 - 02-25-2013

(02-22-2013, 04:24 PM)Nan3cy link Wrote:I hadn't even heard that the Toyon eating clubs had been abolished. I hung out at the L a lot in undergraduate school -- married a Toro after we graduated. (That didn't work out so well, but I'm still very fond of a bunch of the guys... :P)

I married a Toro too. 

Re: OT: Suites Dining - 81alum - 02-26-2013

A superb article.  I seldom see journalism like that in any paper anymore.  I hope it has the power to raise enough consciouness to get the situation changed. 

Something I have notice not just at Stanford, but at universities everywhere.  The 1970s were an era in which many student-centered experiments and reforms began.  While not all of them worked, even the ones that did now seem to have been gradually rolled back.  That concerns flexible curriculum being turned into elaborate requirements, housing and eating coops being corporatized, middle class financial aid dwindling, needs-blind admissions and lack of legacy admits giving way, etc.  The egalitarian ethos that emerged from the years after the student movement seems nearly gone.  Universities have become much more paternalistic and bureaucratic.  This article, sadly, reflects that deplorable trend.

And you laughed when I went on and on about Bollards - Redrum - 02-26-2013

'Frank Hassan has been head chef in Suites’ Bollard Eating Club for seven years, and he specializes in making two things: an incredible breakfast and memories.

It’s the former you’ll get if you walk into Bollard between 7:30 and 9:15 a.m. weekday mornings, where dozens of students chatter under an enormous banner – erected by unknown admirers at some point over the past decade – featuring Frank’s beaming face and the club’s informal title: “The Bollard Empire.”

The Bollard Empire.  I like the sound of that.

Re: And you laughed when I went on and on about Bollards - Robbie - 02-26-2013

(02-26-2013, 10:37 AM)Redrum link Wrote:The Bollard Empire.  I like the sound of that.

And so it was, there was a Bollard at Stanford for which the reputation of greatness was large and growing. The pope heard about this, and believed it was a threat to the known superiority of Notre Dame bollards. Two effects:

Furthermore, the piece itself was effing BRUTAL - Redrum - 02-26-2013

All in all, it reminded me of the 2011 Big Game in Berkeley where those helpless bastards absorbed a 48-14 ass kicking.

I bet after the first part was published,  there were some phone calls exchanged in ResEd.  After the second  was published I bet there was definitely a meeting.  After the third part was published there were klaxon horns blaring and strobing red emergency beacons.  After part four they called in an airstrike. 

The piece was advocacy but advocacy bolstered by facts.  If Stanford didn't get a chance to show the piece had factual errors, they have no one to blame but their own sweet stonewalling selves.  Too bad, I'd actually like to hear the other side of the story.

I liked this last bit:

"Last year, R&DE installed a shiny new dishwasher in Middle Earth. Unlike the other three clubs’ dishwashers, which despite being old and timeworn work perfectly fine, the R&DE-installed Middle Earth dishwasher immediately broke, and Housing still hasn’t successfully fixed it. The symbolism is astonishing.'

Re: OT: Suites Dining - Leftcoast - 02-27-2013

Great piece of advocacy journalism.  I was a member of Bollards Dining Club when it first opened and don't normally get all misty-eyed over the experience.  After reading this I was ready to join the author on the ramparts.

You would expect a rebuttal from Res Ed after a piece like this but I couldn't find one on the Daily Site.  Anyone else have better luck finding one with google?

Re: OT: Suites Dining - CompSci87 - 02-27-2013

Happened to find a reply there yesterday while looking for something else, but I didn't save the link. Sorry ... but it should be findable.

Re: OT: Suites Dining - 82 Card - 02-27-2013

Not having been part of the eating clubs, I don't really have a dog in this fight. But the response got on my nerves. It accuses the students of not negotiating in good faith while not giving any information that would allow the reader to evaluate the claims, a classic bad faith negating move. What's the litigious society stuff about?  Are they claiming the clubs are not following the Food Code? Are they saying the clubs are uninsurable? Cost is a concern.  But the reader has no idea of the source of the cost differential claimed. How much of it is because of the cooks compensation package and how much is due to other factors?

I don't know how it is now but the dining service was terrible in my day. Expensive and unpalatable. We lived out of a dorm fridge and used the one range in the basement (next to the beer Vending machine).

Re: OT: Suites Dining - Kathy - 02-27-2013

(02-27-2013, 09:44 AM)82 Card link Wrote:What's the litigious society stuff about?

According to Boswell's response:
Quote:... the University is currently defending three lawsuits related to the dining societies.


Re: OT: Suites Dining - stupac2 - 02-27-2013

(02-27-2013, 09:44 AM)82 Card link Wrote:I don't know how it is now but the dining service was terrible in my day. Expensive and unpalatable. We lived out of a dorm fridge and used the one range in the basement (next to the beer Vending machine).

I graduated in '09, so I assume that my experience is still pretty close to accurate. First, it varies wildly. I was extremely pleased with the brand new dining hall in GovCo my senior year (can't remember its name), and the small kitchen at one of those places near govco (yates? I seem to have some nominal aphasia going on here) that I ate at frequently my junior year was great. The Lagunita*/Roble dining hall was extremely hit-or-miss, I liked brunch but every other meal was pretty inconsistent. The Kimball/Castano/the other one dining hall was adequate, but the Wilbur dining hall (which I had to use on weekends) was awful, with the only saving grace being that brunch (1/2 of the meals I was eating there) is a ridiculously easy meal to serve adequately.

The true horror show was during the summer, everyone staying on for academic or research reasons had to eat in the K/C/TOP tiny-ass dining hall, so it was constantly packed. And the cut corners even more than during the normal year, so everything good ran out immediately, the bagels didn't fit in the toaster, I think the "cream cheese" was made of plastic, etc. I actually managed to whine my way into a dining exemption and just bought stuff at safeway, and ate lunch at the place in Packard.

That said, my experience with non-academic staff is almost entirely negative (and I had pretty substantial experience, between the boat I had on lake Lag, the wall we constructed in my "room" sophomore year, and the trebuchet I built over the summer). The thing to know is that these people are bureaucrats, and everything is according to policy. It seems like they're actually terrified of using their own personal judgment to deviate from policy and make reasonable concessions to odd/unexpected situations. My interactions weren't substantially different from interactions with, say, an airline customer service agent, except that in the latter case they actually care about your satisfaction somewhat. Based on what I experienced I don't think there are very many less soulful positions in silicon valley.

I know that's being pretty damn negative, but it's what I saw.

*(I actually originally typed "Lagunitas" here until I saw Garvin's post, which is funny. I guess I spend a lot more time drinking beer than reminiscing about Stanford.)

Re: OT: Suites Dining - Leftcoast - 02-27-2013

StuPac, forget Suites and meal quality ..... I want to hear how Res Ed handled someone building a Trebuchet in their dorm room. 

Now THAT sounds interesting!

(And, thanks for the links everyone, there easy to find now and the debate has heated up after the Res Ed response came out. )

Re: OT: Suites Dining - stupac2 - 02-27-2013

(02-27-2013, 10:42 AM)Leftcoast link Wrote:StuPac, forget Suites and meal quality ..... I want to hear how Res Ed handled someone building a Trebuchet in their dorm room. 

Now THAT sounds interesting!

(And, thanks for the links everyone, there easy to find now and the debate has heated up after the Res Ed response came out. )
It was in the grass outside the dorm. It was getting close to when admits were showing up (although not there yet) and so they sent a crew out to destroy it. I had anticipated this and plastered the thing with my name and phone number, on basically every conceivable piece of wood. So, of course, they don't call me and then claim to have never seen it.

I cannot tell you how many times ResEd lied to my face. Entirely too large of a number.

Re: OT: Suites Dining - 82 Card - 02-28-2013

I'm curious how the testing of the Trebuchet went. I'm imagining watermelons flying high over campus.

The existence of three law suites involving the dining clubs doesn't tell me much without knowing anything about the cases. Don't know whether they involve safety issues, discriminaion, fraud or fanciful descriptions of things that happen all the time. Don't know how much the university's exposure is. Don't even know if it was due to something the university was responsible for maintaining. Have there never been any litigation clusters in other food operations on campus? If the cases are still going on, it may not be prudent for any official to give details. But the mere existence of three cases is not persuasive. It's possible that there are serious problems. Can't tell from the response. The tone of the response makes me suspicious that the real problem may be failure to genuflect with the proper degree of enthusiasm.



Re: OT: Suites Dining - stupac2 - 02-28-2013

(02-28-2013, 01:26 AM)82 Card link Wrote:I'm curious how the testing of the Trebuchet went. I'm imagining watermelons flying high over campus.

Sadly they destroyed it before I got it dialed in. I don't think I ever got past it throwing straight up (fortunately that was not with watermelons).