Wed 29 Apr 2009
Trayless Dining
Posted by amartin under Mark Orlowski '04 at 4:58 pm
Williams is working on numerous sustainability projects, many led by the new Zilkha Center for Environmental Initiatives. The College’s efforts to make Dining Services more envrionmentally-friendly were recognized in a front page article in today’s New York Times. As the article mentions, Driscoll is now trayless; Greylock, Dodd, and Mission Park dining halls will go trayless at the start of the fall semester. The fifth major dining hall on campus, Whitmans’ in the Paresky Center, will not be going trayless in September. It is not set up in the traditional all-you-can-eat buffet style–people pick up their food at once and could not balance all the dishes without trays.
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22 Responses to “Trayless Dining”
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Sam says:
Orlowski is an eph.
Dick Swart says:
Please help me out … what is ‘trayless dining’ in this situation? What was it before it was ‘trayless’?
I can picture 2 types of self-serve ‘trayful’ dining:
• what we used to do when I was a gi. Tray grasped in both hands, had compartments. Compartments were filled as you walked along, generally with odd and disparate juxtapositions of food.
• a cafeteria line with a tray you slide along the rails as you select your foods.
and one trayless self-serve:
• walk up to serving table, plate filled with your selection, if have more than one hand, and/or a longish arm, have more than one plate. In served situations this is called ‘arm service’ and the plates are brought to you by a waiter.
I would imagine award-winning break-through will be plate-less dining.
I am an old man … humour me!
Stop Presses!
In a post just above this one, there is a reference to ’staff-served’. What does this mean?
Frank, Henry, are we seeing a return to served meals? Can a coat and tie be far behind! Bring Back the House of Walsh!
'10 says:
Sorry, but this is absolutely idiotic. What is the thinking, exactly, behind this? Either do as Swart mentioned and have compartmentalized GI trays or do away with bowls/plates and plop food right on the tray, but doing away with trays simply is an inconvenience and makes no significant effort towards either sustainability or cost-effectiveness.
hwc says:
The do-gooders believe that people will take less food (especially meat, presumably) without trays to carry their stuff to the table.
JG says:
I believe part of the idea is that you’ll think more about how much food you take if you can’t just pile it up on a tray and haul it to your table. The amount of food wasted in dining halls/cafeterias is absurd. Seriously, is it that hard to carry a plate instead of a tray? Maybe I don’t think much of it, because I often went back to get drinks anyway (I was prone to spilling). Are sippy cups envi friendly?
David says:
1) Welcome back Abby! It is good to have you posting again. And we hope that you will put up some more photos.
2) Thanks to Professor Sam Crane for pointing out Mark Orlowski ‘04. (Assuming that Abby doesn’t mind, I have added his as a category for this post.) Here is the section of the article that quotes him:
I wouldn’t be surprised if Mark pointed out the changes at Williams to the reporter. If so, thanks Mark! The more often that Williams is mentioned in the Times, the better.
Current students who seek to follow Mark in trying to change the world should note one key lesson: Do not go to law school. If you want to make a difference, you are better off spending those three years working on whatever your passion is. Law school is an escape and a diversion.
3) Here is the section that mentions Williams.
Now, right wing reactionary that I am, what is the point of “saving” 14,000 gallons of water? Is Williamstown short of water? Is the Hoosac River turning into a desert arroyo? I doubt it. In a place with plenty of water, you don’t need to worry (much) about saving it. Stuff falls from the sky, for goodness sake. Makes about as much sense as “saving” oxygen by canceling intramural sports. (Counterargument would be if water usage by Williams were metered. Is it?)
Uible style-story: Back in Williams C, my entrymate Blake Robison (now successful artistic director at Round House Theatre) would shave by filling the sink with hot water and then turning off the faucet. I, Economist-reading free market ideologue that I was, let the hot water run the whole time, rinsing my razor in the rushing stream.
Blake, an environmentalist before environmentalism was cool, pointed out that this wasted water. I claimed that this made little sense because water was, at least, free to me and, probably, free to the college.
Apparently, my political beliefs were fixed at 18. At least I am pretty sure that both Blake and I voted for Obama. Change you can believe in!
David says:
1) This is obvious but determining whether or not tray-less dining reduced food waste would make for a great (and widely cited) senior thesis at Williams, especially if it were done properly — i.e., via randomization.
2) Don’t athletes (and others who drink a lot) find this endlessly annoying. Back in the day, it was standard to get three drinks (and drink them all) on your tray so that you didn’t have to get up again.
3) It would be fun if College Council organized a student vote on this and other topics (like slow flow showers). I wonder how widespread ’10’s opinions are . . .
JG says:
Current students should note: don’t listen to David Kane. Some of us who went to law school are certainly doing our best to make a difference.
Re: #2 in your second comment, can athletes and thirsty people not carry three drinks in their hands? I don’t think I had any special powers as a waitress when I could carry 6-8 glasses. And I have small hands.
Re: #3 college council has no authority in this matter, so what exactly would a student vote accomplish?
BTW, David this is a budget cutting device – you should be in full support of it. How much does 147,000 gallons of water cost? Multiply that by several dining halls for next fiscal. And the reduced food costs (some things really are so logical that a study isn’t necessary)? Plus possibly reducing staff costs by a person or two with less to wash. Not sure if it reaches the made-up $2 million threshold, but it’s not insignifcant.
JeffZ says:
Well the big issue with the drinks as I recall was the very small glasses. The glass size may be necessitated by the industrial cleaning equipment (I think I heard that once when I complained about it) but it is certainly wasteful to use four glasses at each meal the way “athletes” (or in my case, non-athletic thirsty people) used to do. Not just because of water, David, but energy and human capital costs employed in cleaning all those zillions of glasses (and trays). Moreover, David, while there may be plenty of water in Williamstown, remember that all that dirty water has to eventually be processed by water treatment plants, again, a process that expends energy.
As for your law school comment, law school does come in handy if you, well, hope to be a lawyer. There are plenty of ways to change the world other than being a lawyer but if you, say, aspire to draft legal advice to the President (like Jon Kravis is currently doing), going to law school Not having an MBA may not disqualify you from succeeding in business, but not having a law degree will prevent you from even having a shot at a wide range of public policy related careers. Now of course, most people who go to law school have little idea what lawyers actually do and what their prospects of actually landing a decent-paying public sector job are, but your “analysis” is overly simplified. According to you, David, should ANYONE go to grad school, by the way (because you have dissed MBA’s and Phd’s in the past, as well, if I recall). If you hadn’t noticed, while the job prospects are grim even for those with grad degrees, they are a heck of a lot grimmer for those without them.
reader says:
Why not encourage diners to not take a tray when they don’t need one, but give them the option to use one when they have too much to carry without one. It might even make sense to locate the trays midway in the food selection area instead of at the beginning. Here’s another case where education might be the better way to go, while leaving room for choices.
current student says:
The lack of trays can be really annoying. But Driscoll has been my favorite dining hall all four years, and going trayless only helped. The building had always felt more homey because of the wood-heavy decor, but it feels even less like a college eatery without trays.
Dick Swart says:
A note to jg@5 -
The ’50’s were draftee days in the Army. You were loaded down with woolen winter uniforms and cotton summer khakis, shirts, ties, fatigues, hats, underwear, boots, shoes, and socks and as you left the building a mirror with a sign above it declared “You are the best-dressed soldier in the World”.
But even then, the sign in the mess hall where you lined up to have your tray filled pleaded “Take all you want but eat all you take”.
Could this piece of Ft Hood nostalgia be used in the dining halls of Williams today?
ohleven says:
such a slippery slope to go down. if cost/waste cutting are legitimate reasons for the enforced giving up of convenience, where will williams draw the line? no more napkins in dining halls? no more paper towels in bathrooms? no more hot showers?
'10 says:
ohleven: clearly you haven’t been reading the Record recently.
ohleven says:
so where is the line going to be drawn? printing everything in font size 2 and reading with a magnifying glass?
wslack says:
The line will be drawn where the college can sustain the spending.
What I find weird is how we didn’t need these cuts a few years ago, when I think the college’s budget was lower relative to inflation.
JeffZ says:
Well I think cuts that can simultaneously (a) save money, (b) teach students about / get them in the habit of being at least somewhat responsible environmental citizens (we’re not talking about no hot water boot camp living here, but Williams is an educational institution, and getting students to adapt habits that aren’t TOTALLY irresponsible isn’t a horrible thing), and (c) help conserve natural resources, all at the same time, at the cost of some very minor inconvenience, are worthy ones. In general, I tend to look most favorably on cost cutting that has positive tertiary benefits — if you have to cut somewhere, why not start with costs that would be considered smart for other reasons as well (eliminating printing of course catalogs DEFINITELY fit into this category as well; kinda find it hard to believe that hadn’t happened already).
reader says:
To me, the key is the in the goal. If it is (a)a money saving effort, that’s one thing. If the goal includes (b), then removing the trays does not teach anyone anything – it is policing not education. When students leave the Williams trayless environment they will have to make their own choices.
I certainly believe (as in my suggestion in post 10) that Williams students are intelligent enough and responsible enough to use trays only when necessary. And yes, I do believe that they are sometimes necessary; there are some students who eat and drink more than others (I won’t even go into the need for a “fourth meal” option here). Isn’t one of the goals of a college education to teach young men and women ways to become responsible, productive members of society?
JG says:
Williams students are plenty intelligent, but I don’t see what is hard about those students “who eat and drink more than others” going back up and getting more food. It’ll be hotter and fresher, and they’ll think about they’re eating. Seriously. And it isn’t all about policing – how many discussions have started because of the removal of trays? That is educational.
And education is about habits as much as it is about ideas. We learn how to study and write and analyze; we learn how to interact with people very different from ourselves and how to disagree respectfully; we can also learn to model behavior that, with only *minor* inconvenience to ourselves will save money and help the environment.
rory says:
the ability of commentors on this blog to straddle both sides of an issue is really impressive. Many of us complain that colleges pamper students too much but complain that they should bring back trays because it’s an inconvenience to students to have to stand up and walk across a room…twice!
anyway, is this really an issue to people? Williams has saved money and energy and lowered food waste by doing this. It reminds me of a conversation I had with then dean Lopez when about housing complaints students had. She laughed some of them off and said “just wait till you live in an apartment!”
trays. we’re complaining about trays and the educational or non-educational way in which williams went trayless. i know this is a blog, but jeez.
and david, the law school dig, as others have pointed out was unnecessary and far too over-generalized.
reader says:
The point is that you don’t teach anyone anything (i.e. about being environmentally responsible) by removing the opportunity to make a decision. If the decision was made to save money say so – don’t pretend that the environmental aspect was a big part of the decision.
An aside – anyone know if there’s an increase in plates hitting the floor?
sophmom says:
An enterprising student ought to look into what they plan to do with all those trays. Maybe devise a contest or an art project that recycles them in a clever way. I can think of a few things to do with them besides sledding.
Any ideas from some of you creative types?