Representatives from Sodexo joined West Virginia University Dining Services during Friday’s (Feb. 18) Board of Governors meeting to acknowledge recent concerns about food quality and to outline the steps being taken to address them.
“Reports of raw or undercooked food and limited options —particularly in the evening hours at some of our dining halls —are deeply concerning and reflect neither who we are nor who we aspire to be as an organization,” Vice President for Strategic Initiatives Rob Alsop said.
Dining Services is working with Sodexo to implement increased training and expanded audits and inspections, as well as a dashboard to share results of WVU Environmental Health and Safety inspections of dining halls. The University will also host weekly meet-and-great events called “Dinner with the GMs” to provide students an open forum to ask questions and share concerns with Dining Services leadership.
Renovations are also planned this year for Summit Café on the Morgantown campus, Bears Den dining hall at WVU Tech in Beckley and Jazzmans Coffee Cart at WVU Potomac State in Keyser.
The University’s Modernization Program, which seeks to enhance the overall technology user experience and ensure WVU is positioned to become the land-grant university of the future by overhauling finance, human resources and student information systems, is progressing with the addition of Dan Dunphy as program director.
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Maryanne Reed presented the Board with an update on academic transformation and a series of Campus Conversations underway to engage faculty, staff and students in the process.
Reed also called attention to the WVU Campus Food Garden. With funding from the competitive Transform This! Challenge Grants, the garden was installed to provide equitable access to fresh produce for those struggling with food insecurity.
Katrina Stewart and Nikki Byrne-Hoffman – both of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences’ – followed with details of the project’s ongoing success.
Read more from WVUToday about the WVU Campus Food Garden.
And President Gordon Gee praised the recent announcement that the University has retained its status as a top research institution by the Carnegie Classifications of Institutions of Higher Education.
“Notably, we have more than doubled our sponsored research over the past five years,” Gee said. “The goal is to double it again in the next five years with the hope that we can come close to $500 million in sponsored research within that timeframe. The result is that we are now solidly an R-1 institution.”
The Board also approved:
- Master of Fine Arts in Art and Design within the College of Creative Arts
- Name change of the College of Creative Arts’ Master of Arts in Music Industry to a Master of Arts in Music Business and Industry
- Several county Extension appointments
- Various ongoing capital improvement projects
- Kevin Craig as a representative serving on the West Virginia United Health System’s Board of Directors
The next regularly scheduled meeting is set for April 22.
