By Gianna Mulvey
The dining hall on any college campus is a hub for community, a place to gather with friends, and, most importantly, a space to eat good food. The same can be said for our very own dining hall here at Western New England University. Every year, new and exciting changes occur over the summer so that when students, faculty, and staff return in the Fall, they can continue to enjoy their dining experience with new and exciting additions to the dining hall.
Myriad changes and additions have been made to the dining hall over the summer in preparation for the Fall semester to improve the student experience.
“We have added a cold component to True Balance, so there are both hot and cold components for all students who need to and choose to eat off of it,” said Mark Mason, the General Manager of the Dining Hall.
The salad bar and sauce station have been altered to suit diners’ needs, too.
“The toppings bar in the salad station has added a way to finish a dish off the way the students would like to,” Mason said. “Every plate can be individualized, especially with the addition of some of the hot sauces and other items that have been added as well.”
Urban Kitchen, one of many dining options within the dining hall, has been revamped with a weekly rotation of themed dishes.
“The Urban Kitchen will be featuring a weekly restaurant rotation of some of the past favorites on a rotating basis,” Mason said. “Some of the stations we have programmed are Pasta, Tex Mex and BBQ. These are fully customizable items based and built exactly how each guest likes.”
The Global Kitchen option has also seen some improvements, similar to the new rotation of Urban Kitchen.
“We have… added a restaurant rotation to the Global Kitchen as well, featuring a rotation of stir fry, Mediterranean, and Indian dishes,” Mason said.
The widespread changes in the dining hall also include expanded options for students with particular dietary requirements.
“We have added a dairy alternative cooler to the counter by the coffee station so that these are available. We also have added a toppings station to True Balance, which will fall under the elimination of the top nine allergen guidelines…,” Mason said.
Mason encourages students with dietary needs and otherwise to express what other dining options they would like to see in the dining hall in the future.
“We also encourage students to come and speak with us to let us know if there are other items they would like to see as we continue to change our program,” Mason said. “We would love to mix in requests as possible.”
In addition to these permanent changes made to the dining hall, the staff has many events planned to make the hall as interactive as possible.
“We have tons of events planned this year to be very interactive with the dining hall, [such as] …Kitchen 101, farmers market, or dietician pop-ups and theme days. There are a lot of events planned for the semester,” Mason said.
Students, faculty, and staff can take advantage of these changes whenever the dining hall is open. Standard hours of operation are Monday through Thursday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
