Letters to the Editor | Attack on Aramark uncalled for, say student representatives

We would like to address some concerns regarding the new dining contract raised in last week’s issue of The Miscellany News. We would like to reiterate that this was an extremely comprehensive search, and a tremendous amount of thought and care went into it.

We made every attempt to voice student concerns on the Request for Proposal Committee, and we disagree that this process was too secretive. First, the entire Food Committee, comprised of representatives from each dormitory, had access to the proposals and attended both the initial meeting with potential bidders in December and the meeting with the three finalists in March.

Second, student representatives from the Sustainability Committee, including the Local Foods intern, provided input.

Third, Food Committee representatives and house presidents were asked to solicit input from dormitory residents. All of this was in addition to open focus groups held last May and extensive coverage of this process in The Miscellany News. Direct involvement was as extensive as it could have been given the confidentiality of bidders’ financial information.

We are accused of being “pro-corporate,” but this misses a key fact: There was never a viable option to move away from a corporate provider. To mitigate the feared effects of corporate management, we made sure certain measures were in place, such as keeping food service workers as Vassar employees. The Vassar Department of Human Resources negotiates with the union on contract terms, and we see this as a way of staving off harsh corporate policy.

We also inquired about moving totally in-house, which proved logistically and financially impossible. Vassar simply couldn’t hire all the necessary staff or implement the programs needed, and the financial implications were impractical.

We defend our commitment to “real sustainability and local foods production.” It is true that large corporations can lose sight of the effects of their business, but Vassar’s Aramark managers will continue to facilitate environmentally and socially responsible food service. Vassar has already seen numerous sustainability initiatives, and Aramark’s plans for increased local sourcing far outstrip those of the competition. Aramark has committed to locally sourcing 40 percent of ingredients by 2013, up from the current 30 percent, and their overall plan for sustainability far exceeded that of any other proposal.

Those of us who helped make this decision worked long and hard for our peers, and we are eager to continue this dialogue with anyone who would like to. We acknowledge that it’s probably impossible to satisfy Aramark’s or big business’s most ardent detractors, but attacking us for the decision to retain a corporate vendor is simply unproductive. That was never our choice to make.

—Morgan Warners ’08, VSA Vice President for Student Life, and Nate Silver ’10, Chair of the Food Committee