Students Concerned about Sodexo
I am writing this letter to correct some statements made in a recent article about Sodexo’s attempts to resolve disagreements with student employees. This article stated that two student managers created an anti-Sodexo Facebook group. I created the group, and they later joined. I have never been employed by Sodexo. I created it when I listened to my friends’ grievances, believing that we needed a space where these complaints could be documented and discussed. I agree that the original name was too combative; we changed it to Students Concerned about Sodexo.
As a group, our complaints also go far beyond dissatisfaction with shift length requirements. We were dismayed that Sodexo planned to hire non-student employees if these positions could not be filled. We believe Sodexo should place student support at the top of its priorities. We also disagreed with environmentally irresponsible changes in food handling policy, such as the decision to throw away food instead of selling “day-olds,” which generated monumental waste. We are happy that this decision was recently reversed.
Anyone who wishes to learn more can visit the Facebook group, which does still exist. Please know that we seek solutions, and we appreciate Sodexo’s willingness to find solutions as well.
— Anna Mantheakis
Glacier Student's Reactions
As one of the former Glacier residents who was informed on January 27 that we were required to leave, I feel the need to address a few of the points made in your article published in the February 1 issue.
Mr. Ebbeling may claim “this is not about saving money,” but the fact that he quickly emphasizes reducing costs and increasing funds proves otherwise. After all, Glacier was only using 45 percent of its rooms because, as the article fails to mention, Glacier is a singles-only hall.
And because we had no roommates, we were more reliant on each other than a hall of double rooms would be, which strengthened our sense of community. Thus, leaving established friends behind served as an emotional burden on top of the stress of moving in the middle of the term.
I must contradict the article’s statement that “there is no rush or pressure on the residents to move out immediately.” In fact, there was a great deal of pressure. For example, my friends and I were confident we could get into Diamond, but when we met with Housing the very day after the meeting, all the rooms were already filled by other Glacier students. Obviously, we do not have the luxury of waiting until Spring break, and once we sign up for a new room, we may only keep our Glacier keys for a week—and we had to negotiate for this extension, since Housing originally stated that we only had the standard four days at our disposal.
It is not my intention to drag out an issue that is irrevocably in effect, nor to antagonize this school’s housing offices and administration. I simply want to drive the message home that our input was never solicited, and Housing did not appear to take into consideration how extremely this disrupted our studying and our routines. We did not have prior knowledge of this event until the date mentioned, which, as I am now writing was not even a week ago. In our collective opinion, this entire matter could have been handled more tactfully and with better consideration for Glacier students.
— Laura Mathias
