Gladfelter Serving Up New Hours
Al Stone-Gebhardt | September 6, 2023
On August 28, Gladfelter dining hall served up some big changes. The sole dining hall on campus changed its hours –extending from 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekends.
Previously the dining hall hours were 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
One major reason for the change was to honor students’ requests for greater accessibility, especially for late-night eaters and student athletes. Prior to the change, many student athletes missed dinner completely due to practices.
Ruby Jane Moser
Students in Gladfelter during the lunch rush.
Vivian Salvucci is a junior on the Blacksmithing Crew and an athlete at WWC. She plays rugby, and last year often had to forgo dinner due to Gladfelter’s limited dining hours.
“I'm really glad that they found a way to make it open till 8,” Salvucci said. “We really needed that. No food after 7:30 is just unrealistic.”
However, the later hours come with a caveat: The meal hall will be closed daily from 2-4 p.m. Not everyone is happy with this change, especially those who like a late lunch or a mid-afternoon snack.
“What I don't understand is why they took away two hours at lunch just to tack on 30 minutes at the end,” Salvucci continued. “It’s stressful.”
Marketing and Sustainability Coordinator Summer Vishnu started her career at WWC in September 2022. The former environmental studies and sociology major from Eckard hopes to connect people with the environment through food and sustainability efforts.
Vishnu says interactions with students and student voices contributed to the decision.
“This was a request that was made by students, and we want to follow through as much as we can on those requests,” Vishnu said. “I think that we tried to take student voice into consideration a ton and that is ultimately why we changed the hours.”
Vishnu additionally feels that staff benefit from the break and finds that many are happy to provide that extra hour to students.
Vishnu also pointed out the benefits of closing Gladfelter from 2-4 p.m. daily. “I think being closed those two hours has given us a huge ability to create more buffer and do that; resetting of spaces, making sure things are stocked, doing that deep cleaning that is needed for food space.”
WWC junior Alona Fransen expressed that, though she is very happy that Gladfelter is open later, she worries that the dining hall is not providing enough food during these hours.
“I'm happy that they're open later,” Fransen said, “but I think it's unfortunate that they're not able to offer food to students for the entire day. I think that closing between 2 and 4 is not ideal.”
In addition to being a member of the Chemistry Crew, Fransen prefers to eat dinner late. She emphasized, however, that students like her will feel the loss of their sole dining hall closing for two hours during the day.
“Other schools run multiple food halls at all hours of the day and night,” Fransen said. “So it's not unreasonable for us to expect that the school can run one singular food hall for the entire school day.”
Moth Emrick is a creative writing senior at WWC and is an active member of the Writing Studio Crew. Though she does not prefer to eat later, she acknowledges that Gladfelter’s closings hinder many students from getting lunch on their own time.
“It's the fact that there's nowhere to get food at all,” Emrick said. “Cowpie's closed. Glad's closed. So the only ways are ways that I have to spend extra money at the Owl's Nest or a vending machine.”
The cost of eating out or using DoorDash or Uber Eats can add up. Meanwhile, WWC encourages students to use the cafeteria to foster a sense of community.
To further this, Vishnu plans on re-implementing a program at Gladfelter called Tell Us Your Mood Mondays. She aims to increase student-staff interaction and foster a greater sense of community through this program.
Tell Us Your Mood Monday will take place on October 2 outside of Gladfelter this semester.
For more information on Summer Vishnu and the Tell Us Your Mood Monday program, you can contact summer-vishnu@warren-wilson.edu.