On the front page of the Pacer on March 6th was a story about the forums. As a student and parent of future UTM students, I thought I'd attend. Sodexho did a fantastic job with their end of the presentation and had some very interesting ideas, demonstrations, and showed some nice food displays.

Sodexho also had some nice material showing their community involvement and several people had some great things to say about the management and staff of Sodexho. But, the forum was billed as a place for students to “Ask questions and give input on the vendors that are presenting”. I was expecting specifics about their proposal to the university and none were given.

Some of my concerns are that during the summer session students have to walk to local restaurants to get a meal and I never got a straight answer from Sodexho about their plans to feed the students during the summer. I fully understand that the main lunchroom may not be economically feasible to keep open, but surely one of the smaller food service areas could serve meals.

Another concern I asked about was the cost to the students and parents. The people using the facilities ultimately are the ones charged or their food tickets would come out of the pocket of a family member or the taxpayers. With the bidding process so far along, I thought it was pertinent information. My last concern was an improvement in the meals given to the students now and in the future. Night and weekend meals are spartan at times, and if the service is now lacking at times then what is going to happen if they maintain costs to the students at the same levels but pay the university more to be here?

Sodexho's format for their presentation seemed a bit unusual.

One of their key people told me we would be given a chance to ask questions at 4 p.m. but after talking to a few other people it was apparent he had made an error and they were giving the presentation to the committee at 4 p.m.

In addition to that, their spokeswoman made very sure that she allowed some specific people who as their district manager mentioned to me “volunteered” to speak. That in itself was fine, in many ways Sodexho had been good for UTM, but there was at least a half an hour before the other meeting where more unbiased questions could have been asked instead of testimonies about how great the service is.

I really look forward to hearing Aramark's presentation as I looked forward to Sodexho's tomorrow evening and seeing their corporate culture in action. I plan to ask the same questions and hopefully get some real answers instead of a lot of fluff and send my thoughts to the Pacer.

If the university does not in fact want more student involvement then they shouldn't allow the Pacer to advertise an open forum on the front and back page of the Pacer. The former manager of the book store made a comment that really hit home during his talk to the crowd. “Compare apples to apples” but we as students need information to make informed decisions instead of fluff.

Why isn't a poll on Banner like we had for the housing questions a year or so ago? Housing did an excellent job making sure the poll was perceived to be as fair as possible.

When does the administration plan to release a side by side comparison of the bids or at least of the high points? Why wasn't that information provided at the open forum by Sodexho on their bid?

I'm sure this information is out there someplace and as one faculty member mentioned to my voicing one of my concerns; Who did you ask why concerning a lack of services during the summer sessions? At the time, I didn't ask anyone of importance, just the students that were forced to walk even further than normal for their meals.

So, I'm asking the entire campus why. Why waste our time giving input on a decision that may have been already made for the present student body and students of the future? If that is not the case, then what does the committee plan to make the student involvement in the process really meaningful?