“Harding is a marriage factory,” you might hear. Or “You mean you have chapel every day?” someone might ask. These are examples of the labels attributed to the “Harding experience.”
Another significant contributor to a student’s experience at Harding that is often overlooked, however, is the daily interactions that take place in the cafeteria.
“Being in the cafeteria you get to see a lot of your friends,” freshman Michelle Ramsey said. “You can talk to tons of different people because everybody goes through there at some point, so it’s a really social place.”
The Harding University Student Association’s Cafeteria Committee recognizes the cafeteria’s importance as a hub of social interaction and is working to enhance the atmosphere and make it a more pleasurable dining experience as well.
Austin Yates, freshmen representative for the Student Association, took charge of the committee after he was elected at the beginning of the fall semester.
“Each person in the SA gets appointed to lead a committee dealing with a specific category of Harding life,” Yates said. “We assemble our own committees and I picked food service because it’s one of the only things I know about because I love food.”
Thus far, the committee is responsible for adding toppings to the ice cream line, providing additional dressings on the salad bar and pushing back the time Chick-fil-A stops selling chicken biscuits in the student center to 11 a.m., according to freshman Hannah Cochran, committee member.
When the committee proposes suggestions, Aramark reviews the suggestions and decides whether the change can be implemented or not. If the change cannot be applied, the committee receives a report outlining the reasons why it cannot be changed.
The committee is also in the process of requesting more cereals and more bowls for the cereal bar, getting chocolate milk and more cups for the far side of the cafeteria and getting frozen yogurt mix to interchange with the ice cream a couple days of the week, Yates said.
The effectiveness of the Cafeteria Committee is limited in scope, however, due to Aramark’s limited ability to implement changes. There is little the committee can do about the quality of the food in the cafeteria because Harding chose a specific plan from Aramark that outlines what food can be served, Cochran said.
The Harding administration is yet to get involved with the committee, which may be the step needed to boost the committee’s influence to the next level.
“All of us in the committee have come to the conclusion that we’ve done as much as we can without talking to Harding about it,” Cochran said.
Limited power in changing things does not affect the committee’s openness to suggestions, however.
“We chose a lot of people for the committee who have several different friend groups trying to give us input,” Yates said. “We chose a lot of really confident people that I think can figure out ways to make things better.”
