EDITORIAL: Real Food On Campus residential restaurant should not be where renovation money is spent
The $850,000 appropriation to renovate the Real Food On Campus residential restaurant at Carey Hall is an unexpected — and unnecessary — inclusion to the agenda for Thursday’s board of trustees meeting.
The restaurant is still used as a showpiece along with Woldt’s Fresh Food Company.
As Brooks Hall deals with flooding and the North Campus facilities are largely ignored when renovations and improvements are concerned, the question is obvious: Is this really the facility on campus that most desperately requires nearly $1 million in renovations?
The proposal in the agenda does not specifically detail what will be done to the RFoC, only that it will create “new seating and architectural elements that will create eight unique seating areas providing multiple dining experiences.”
It also says it will include a new entrance, new energy-efficient lighting, signs, graphics and paint.
The agenda does not say whether any major changes to the structure, such as water or gas pipes, electrical wiring or architectural reworking, will factor into the project. If not, this entire project seems entirely frivolous.
As was pointed upon in Monday’s editorial, the university needs to prioritize spending to the projects and programs that really need it.
New buildings, colorful, renovated residential restaurants, touchscreen computer directories and the like may attract new students — which we are seeing a surge of currently.
That will eventually drop off, however, as this money that is being spent on shiny new toys rather than strengthening our educational programs or repairing buildings that truly need it, and in the long run the number of students applying and attending will drop off.
And if the university is determined to renovate a residential restaurant, why not the one at Robinson, which could honestly use it? Even Merrill Hall’s residential restaurant would be in more need of an updating than the RFoC.
Of course, the prioritization of the newer residential complexes over the older ones is nothing new.
Choosing to renovate and beautify the Towers over North Campus may prove to be a sign of things to come. If five years or so down the line honor students are living in a different complex, any surprise would either be naive and uninformed or disingenuous.
