Students are calling for improvements in Residential and Dining Enterprises (R&DE) practices across dining halls after videos of rats, the recent discovery of microplastics in food and dissatisfaction over meal variety sparked tension on social media this quarter.
“Knowing about the rats and the plastic gave me food anxiety and tons of students relate vocally, but I’m sure there are even more that are less vocal,” Philippe Clark ’27 said.
After seeing a video of rats in Lakeside Dining on Fizz, Clark went to investigate, he said. Clark said he found rat droppings behind one of the waffle makers, which he shared online.
“I posted it on Fizz because I don’t know what else to do,” said Clark. “Clearly the students have been unhappy for a long time, but it keeps getting worse and worse.”
For Clark, part of the issue is that undergrads living in university housing are required to be on an R&DE meal plan. Clark claimed that this allows R&DE to “lower the quality year over year with no fear of repercussions while still raising prices.”
Last year, the meal plan cost $7,325. This year, the meal plan costs $7,725. While students have the option of eating out, many students, especially those who are low-income, can not afford to eat out every day, leaving the dining hall as their only option.
However, other students are generally satisfied with the food from the dining halls.
For Ora Rutayisire ’27, the food is “good enough,” but she wished R&DE was more thoughtful in menu planning. She said she sometimes felt like the dining halls offered an assortment of ingredients instead of meals.
“Those who don’t eat out and stay on campus matter, so I think they deserve some decent food,” Rutayisire said.
In the future, Rutayisire hopes that R&DE will stop serving cold food and involve student voices in the making of menus. She suggested R&DE could gather suggestions for the menu from students in a bi-weekly survey.
Other students, like Will Gibbs ’28, think the issues students find with the dining halls stem from R&DE upper-level management and budget constraints, rather than from the dining hall staff.
Gibbs said he appreciated the efforts of the dining hall staff working to serve the student body.
“I think just by virtue of trying to run a buffet for 200 students a day, day in and day out, and trying to come up with creative menus, and to do that under a budget constraint and under dietary restrictions, I feel like it limits them so much,” Gibbs said.
Clark also raised similar concerns about R&DE executives, specifically Eric Montell, the assistant vice provost of Stanford Dining. Clark claimed that since Montell assumed his role in 2022, the amount of meal plan dollars given to students has decreased and the price per meal swipe has increased.
The Daily has reached out to Montell for comment.
Clark also finds R&DE “shameless” in deviating from the typical menu for this past Family Weekend.
“It’s a universally known fact on campus that Parents’ Weekend is ‘good food weekend,’” Clark said. “Why would the food need to be improved for parents’ weekend if it was really at an acceptable quality?”
During Family Weekend this month, R&DE displayed a printed statement on dining hall tables about microplastics. In the statement, Stanford Dining, Hospitalities & Auxiliaries (SDHA) wrote that “we take your concerns seriously and are actively monitoring the situation” and encouraged families to reach out to them.
“I’m glad the university is addressing a problem and recognizes it’s a potential issue, and so as long as they keep on moving to a solution for that, I feel safe,” Gibbs said about the university’s response to the findings.
In light of these recent student concerns with R&DE, the Undergraduate Senate (UGS) will host a “Conversation with R&DE” tomorrow on Zoom from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Students will be able to ask questions live to R&DE executives such as Montell and Senior Associate Vice Provost Shirley J. Everett from R&DE.