Lucas and the Dining Center Team – Slowing Down to Succeed

Lucas is a sous chef in a campus dining center and the staff member in charge of the cultural food programming. Lucas is reading a year-end report that synthesizes customer feedback from online surveys and on-site feedback cards. Lucas reads a substantial number of comments that are critical of the dining center’s food selection. Comments from students, faculty and staff of color, as well as international patrons, disapprove of food options that connect to their cultures being separated in the dining center in an “ethnic foods” concept. Further, patrons are disappointed that the foods they are most familiar with are offered on a limited basis, and often during specialty events or culturally specific celebrations. Lucas discerns a theme from the feedback that the patrons do not appreciate their food cultures being regarded as “special” where the foods preferred by their white peers is regarded as normal, the standard, and is what is most regularly offered in the dining center.

Lucas summarizes and shares the patron feedback with the larger team and opens discussion. Initially, the team is defensive about the feedback and assert that their menu options are driven by demand and that patrons ultimately vote with their dollars. With more exploration, the team concedes that their menu options are determined largely by their training and capacity. The food the dining center staff provides is indicative of their own food preferences, and the ingredients and methods they use are drawn largely from the regions they were raised and trained in.

The team constructs a short-term plan to provide more food options to be integrated throughout the dining center. The team also declares a longer-term plan to recruit, hire, and retain staff to help imagine and prepare menus that reflect the diverse food traditions of their patrons.

Key Take-Aways
  • The Issue: Lucas and his team receive feedback that students, faculty, and staff of color who patron the dining center are dissatisfied with the available menu and experience the available options that connect to their own cultures to be nominal and marginalized.
  • The Deliberation: Lucas initiates dialogue with his team about the critical feedback. The team works through feelings of defensiveness and explores the gap between patrons' expectations and their knowledge, skill and capacity to provide foods that reflect diverse cultures.
  • The Growth: The team recognizes that their menu is a product of their own socialization. The team deliberates both short- and long-term solutions and prioritizes the recruitment and retention of staff who can help diversify the menu.