Senate Bill 15-16-24
| Bill ID: | 15-16-24 |
| Name: | Proposal for Transparency in Campus Diner Food Production |
| Proposed: | 02/14/2016 |
| Sponsor: | Erik Rosenbaum, Undergraduate Student |
| Proposal: | Currently, the dining services website provides no clear or obviously available description of where their food comes from, what form that food is in when it is delivered, and how that food is ultimately prepared before being served to students in the dining halls. This issue affects the students and faculty that regularly get food from the dining halls. Similar to how the University posts nutritional information for its food (although, this is done in a very ambiguous manner), the University of Maryland -- a public university -- should also acknowledge the students' right to know where diner food comes from and how it is prepared on campus. There is some attempt, or at least a feigned attempt, at trying to display how food is prepared. This attempt, or fa?ade, can be observed in how staff cook burgers on open stoves or heat up pasta in a saucepan; yet, more transparency is needed for these foods and many others. Ranging from the suspiciously perfect fruit in the salad bar to the odd-tasting eggs in the breakfast line to the feathered chicken wings at late night, it is the duty of a transparent, honest institution to make available the details of a truly important and potentially detrimental aspect of many students' daily lives. I could not find a Section or Policy in the UMD Policy and Procedures document in which the dining services activities and logistics are explicitly addressed. Section V-(A) "University of Maryland, College Park Policies Concerning Student Housing" under "Student Affairs" (<a href="http://www.president.umd.edu/policies/2014-V-500a.html" target="_blank">http://www.president.umd.edu/policies/2014-V-500a.html</a>) briefly addresses dining services, purely in terms of meal plans for students. A new subsection for Section V, or an entirely new Section, should include the need for constant transparency of diner food, enacting an update of the website no less than 90 days after this section or subsection's passage. This "update" on the "transparency of diner food" shall be defined as, but not limited to: · A comprehensive description of each meal and each ingredient's path from producer to consumer. This pertains only to unmarked items, e.g. A1 sauce, Old Bay seasoning, etc. do not count. Pasta, French Toast, Grilled Chicken, etc. do count. · Mention of the name of the company from which the school buys food, as well as the specific location of the facility in which that food was produced, farmed, or otherwise processed. · An explicit description of how staff prepare the students' food from delivered items. This description must include a detailing of what state the food stuffs are in when they arrive on campus, e.g. frozen, fresh, vacuum sealed, etc. The entire explanation of the processes for each meal should always conclude with "The food is then served to students," or something of the sort. This is simply to illustrate the thoroughness each explanation should have. The purpose of this proposal would be to make more information available to the public. This idea is essentially the same as the reason for posting the diner food's nutritional information. Other than the trouble of getting someone to write these descriptions, there do not really seem to be any immediate, potential negative consequences from the proposal. What was the downside of posting the dining food's nutritional information? The dining services website claims a 20% reliance on sustainable foods (<a href="http://dining.umd.edu/sustainability/sustainable-food-purchasing/" target="_blank">http://dining.umd.edu/sustainability/sustainable-food-purchasing/</a>). But all the details the diner claims can only be seen as positive (which almost exclusively regard sustainability or sustainability efforts). A policy should be made for a currently non-existent or very weak practice, that is, the practice of increased diner transparency. This policy could easily be implemented by hiring someone, or a small team of people, to collect information from the diner and its managerial staff (through testimonies or direct observation), and then write descriptions on the dining services website. |
| Active? | No |
| Policy: | http://www.president.umd.edu/policies/2014-V-500a.html |
Status
| Status: | Completed |
| Completed On: | 03/21/2016 |
History
| Status: | Complete |
| Reviewer: | Senate Executive Committee (SEC) |
| Received: | 2016-03-14 |
| Decision Date: | 2016-03-21 |
| Decision: | The SEC reviewed the response from the Division of Student Affairs as an information item. |
| Actions: | The Division of Student Affairs decided not to pursue the proposal after review by the Dining Services Advisory Board. |
| Related Files: |
| Status: | Complete |
| Reviewer: | Division of Student Affairs |
| Received: | 2016-02-23 |
| Decision Date: | 2016-03-14 |
| Decision: | The Division of Student Affairs sent a response to the SEC. |
| Actions: | The SEC was informed that the Residence Hall Association has oversight over the dining halls and that the Dining Services Advisory Board advises them. Therefore, SEC Members voted to forward the proposal to you so that it could be put through a review by the appropriate channels within the Division of Student Affairs with results of the review sent to the SEC. |
| Next Step: | SEC Review |
| Related Files: |
| Status: | Complete |
| Reviewer: | Senate Executive Committee (SEC) |
| Received: | 2016-02-16 |
| Decision Date: | 2016-02-19 |
| Decision: | The SEC voted to forward the proposal to the Division of Student Affairs for review. |
| Actions: | The SEC discussed the proposal at its 2/19/16 meeting. The SEC voted to send the proposal to the Division of Student Affairs for review as the Division of Student Affairs has bodies which oversee the dining halls. |
| Next Step: | Division of Student Affairs Review |
| Related Files: |