Article by Kaytlin Sellner. Photo by Kaytlin Sellner.
This tasty charcuterie board greeted staff and students alike while attending the Dining Focus Group event on Feb. 12 and the 13, hosted by Huskies Dining. Across two days, about a dozen 45-minute-long sessions were hosted, starting at breakfast and ending just before suppertime. The special incentive for students to attend included free meal vouchers to restaurants on campus, including Erbert And Gerbert’s, Chick-fil-a, Red & Black Coffee Co, and even to Garvey Commons upon completion of attendance.
These multiple sessions were hosted at Garvey Common’s Husky Den. There, a representative from Chartwell Higher Education, unaffiliated with campus dining, distributed questionnaires and led discussion about the campus’s dining options. Topics included food quality and variety, the campus catering services, meal plan feedback, and even general food preferences of the attendees. Particular attention was paid when looking at places where expectations fell short, and where people enjoyed their dining experience on campus.
Kiara, a sophomore at St. Cloud State, was up bright and early for a 9 a.m. session on Thursday. For her, when asked why she came, it had nothing to do with the refreshments or even the meal voucher.
“It is about you and your health, and what you’re putting into your body,” Kiara said. Explaining that she came to the focus group to get some insight into the campus’s dining situation, “There’s always things that can be improved.”
Huskies Dining knew it would be difficult to rouse some students up early for a discussion over breakfast about upcoming changes to dining at St. Cloud State. Despite this, Lisa Lawson, Marketing Director for Huskies Dining said that this year’s focus groups were “extremely well attended.”
“Feedback is vital for campus dining,” Lawson stated, in an email release pertaining the focus group survey and the various feedback options for students and other individuals who dine on campus, “Without feedback, we don’t know what’s going well and what’s not going well.”
Though the focus group sessions are now over, feedback is still just as important as it ever was for Huskies Dining. Lawson explains that Text2Chat, a service provided by Huskies Dining, offers guests the opportunity to provide immediate feedback anytime they’re dining on campus. This service involves texting feedback to a phone number, which appears as a printed sticker on some of the tables at dining spots on campus.
“This offers guests at any of our locations to provide immediate feedback, such as something not working, being out of stock, requesting their favorite dish,” said Lawson.
Alongside Text2Chat, there are feedback forms available on the Huskies Dining site, the app, and their email inbox (huskiesdining@stcloudstate.edu), which are all always open to new ideas, comments, or concerns. The next major feedback event pertaining campus dining won’t come around again until October, when Chartwells Higher Education launches their annual 5-8 minute nationwide survey about the dining habits and preferences of student bodies belonging to multiple university campuses.
To get the best out of your personal dining experience at St. Cloud State, consider leaving some feedback of your own at Huskies Dining.
“We would love for guests to send shoutouts to our associates,” Lawson adds. Reminding us that not all feedback has to be negative, or even about the food itself, “Send us a quick text about an employee that made your day!”
A little positivity could go a long way into promoting what’s already going well at St. Cloud State, leading campus dining to focus on better improvements into the future.
Recent Comments