Dining Services fields hundreds of student comments annually, seeks more engagement
Scarlet & Black 2025-12-08
When students exit the Marketplace dining hall, a bulletin board displays their handwritten feedback cards alongside responses from dining services staff. These exchanges represent just one channel through which Grinnell College Dining Services receives and responds to student input while navigating constraints of budget and physical space.
Scott Turley, who became interim director of dining services in June following the departure of Jeanette Moser, said his office receives approximately 400 to 500 comment cards annually from the Marketplace alone, with additional feedback coming from the Spencer Grill and Global Cafe.
“We answer them all, every single one of them,” Turley said. “We leave them posted for a few days so that people can see that they’ve been answered.”
The comment cards represent the most visible feedback mechanism, but dining services also gathers input through a dining committee and an upcoming comprehensive student survey being conducted by Porter Khouw Consulting, a national dining services consulting firm that visited campus before Thanksgiving break to conduct a focus group.
Turley said the dining committee has struggled with student participation but is working with the Student Government Association (SGA) to recruit student senators as representatives. “Hasn’t been a lot of student involvement yet, so I’m working with SGA to get some student senators involved,” he said. “Hopefully we get representation from all areas of campus.”
Anu Sanumi `26, SGA Speaker of the Senate and dining committee liaison, said the committee has seen tangible results from student advocacy. “This semester, there’s been sort of an increase in frequency of fruits and maybe a bit of diversity in the kinds of foods they’re providing,” Sanumi said.
When students submit feedback through comment cards, Turley said responses vary based on the nature of the concern. Immediate operational issues, such as items being unavailable or unexplained menu changes, are addressed quickly. Suggestions for new menu items or broader changes are added to a project queue.
“If it’s a suggestion from a student, we take that to heart,” Turley said. “Those go into a queue, and we start working on those as projects if we feel like it’s viable for the students.”
Several current menu offerings originated from student requests. Turley pointed to dishes developed from suggestions at this semester’s food bazaar, where he identified 15 to 17 student-submitted recipes that dining services plans to develop. “We’ve got lots of dishes on the menu that are student- driven,” he said.
Sanumi worked with dining services to understand seasonal constraints on fruit availability. In a May email to students, Sanumi explained that most fruits are sourced seasonally from Iowa, making favorites like berries and melons primarily available during summer break.
“Outside of that window, these fruits will come at a higher cost, but the quality will also be much lower,” Sanumi stated in the email.
Despite these limitations, student advocacy prompted dining services to prioritize in-season fruits available during the academic year and improve rotation for more variety. Dining services now offers frozen berries at the yogurt station each morning and keeps grapes available weekly. “You have also seen first-hand the impact that making your opinions heard can have,” Sanumi wrote in May, citing the availability of grapes, beetroot, kiwis, and strawberries.
Recent changes responding to student feedback include the expansion of fresh fruit options. Dining services now offers frozen berries at the yogurt station each morning and keeps grapes available weekly. The yogurt station has become particularly popular, with Turley estimating that the dining hall goes through more than 50 pounds of Greek yogurt daily.
Turley is also developing a “Student Station Takeover” initiative, in which student groups would collaborate with dining services to plan and serve meals of their choice. The students would discuss the cultural background and significance of their dishes and develop recipes that staff would then scale up for large-scale production.
“I think having some student involvement down there would be a lot of fun,” Turley said, adding that the initiative could run two to three times per semester if there is sufficient student interest.
We answer them [student comments] all, every single on of them.
— Scott Turley, Interim director of Dining Services
Some student requests, however, face practical limitations. The Spencer Grill’s decision to move meal replacements to the GET app rather than ordering them through the front register came after dining services determined that the operation was unsustainable. The small kitchen space and limited equipment made it impossible to manage meal replacement orders safely during regular operating hours.
“We basically had to shut the Spencer Grill down every day for two hours,” Turley said. “It just killed their budget.”
He also noted concerns about food code violations related to preparing fried items like chicken strips and french fries in the limited space. The small fryer couldn’t properly manage the volume of orders, forcing staff to cook items ahead of time and hold them — a practice that raised food safety concerns. Lattice chips have since replaced traditional fries because they can be prepared beforehand more easily without the same food safety risks, said Turley.
Student representatives continue to identify areas for improvement. Sanumi noted concerns about cross-contamination at the honor bowl station, where the same oil used to fry fish is used for french fries, affecting vegan and vegetarian students. “Students have mentioned that there’s not a lot of varieties at different stations, so halal, vegan everywhere,” Sanumi said. The dining committee is also exploring ways to increase variety at specialty stations.
Behind the scenes, dining services is undergoing a major technological overhaul. The department is transitioning to a new software that will replace the current NetNutrition and recipe index system. With NutriSlice, a digital menu platform, students will be able to access menus through an app that displays information in 47 languages and accommodates nine allergen filters and various dietary preferences.
The app will launch in January around the same time that GrinEats — a student-run menu app that gained over 1,700 users — shuts down due to lack of funding and institutional support. According to Turley, the software transition, which goes live in January, has consumed significant staff time.
All recipes had to be manually retyped because the systems were incompatible, which contributed to dining services’ decision to keep this year’s six-week menu cycle identical to last year’s.
The new system will also change how recipes are built. All ingredients will be measured by weight using scales rather than measuring cups.
“You can only imagine how big the database is and all the recipes,” Turley said. “All those had to be retyped.” He added that the switch to weight-based measurements represents “a huge change for the staff.”
Looking ahead, Turley said the consulting firm’s upcoming survey will provide more comprehensive data on student priorities.
The results will inform both immediate adjustments and longer-term budget planning for the next academic year and beyond.