News' View: Keep trays in dining halls
Yale is considering following hundreds of other schools in experimenting with eliminating trays from dining halls. It shouldn’t.
News' View: Keep trays in dining halls
Yale is considering following hundreds of other schools in experimenting with eliminating trays from dining halls. It shouldn’t.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Earlier this week the News reported on the growing trend toward trayless dining at colleges around the country. Yale University Dining Services is considering following suit and eliminating trays from Yale’s dining halls, though there are several challenges standing in the way.
The issue balances environmentalism and convenience, as well as practical logistics, and between keeping and rejecting trays there is no obvious choice.
The elimination of trays has been shown to reduce food waste and to conserve water and detergent. At Middlebury, trayless dining has decreased waste by .75 ounces per meal, and a study by Aramark, Yale’s former dining provider, showed that dining halls without trays produce 25 to 30 percent less waste than those with them. Brown now uses 4,800 fewer gallons of water each week by not having trays to wash, and dining halls without trays also consume less detergent.
Without trays, however, the dining experience is markedly different. Some say it’s more like eating at home. Except, of course, there is no way to serve up seconds at the table. And the kitchen is much farther away.
To understand this issue better, we tried trayless dining this week. Some results were expected, some were surprising.
First, we ate less. With no tray to easily carry food, we chose to take only one dish at a time (since that was all we could carry), instead of taking soup, salad and a main dish at once. And we put less food on each plate, afraid of spilling or dropping a fully loaded dish.
With so little food made available by each trip to the servery, we had to make multiple trips. Such travel was obviously an annoyance, but more so for its social disturbance than its caloric requirement: Conversations, we found, were hard to maintain when diners were routinely leaving the table to get more food.
And each trip inspired prayer. Holding even a knife, fork and plate in one hand while dishing up was a hazard, as was carrying those items and a drink back to a table.
Of course, we spilled some. And instead of landing nicely on trays, our food and drinks splattered tables and floors. We cleaned up what we could, but our messes ultimately required mops and sponges to clean fully.
So we’re not convinced that trayless dining is a promising option, despite its environmental benefit. Perhaps the best choice is to encourage behavior modification.
Were trays to be available in dining halls but located inconveniently, behavioral economics tells us fewer people would grab trays when they eat — but of course those of us bothered or scared by lack of trays could still count on them. Moving trays away from the entrance and the servery would discourage a number of Yalies from taking them, but would not prevent us all from taking advantage of their benefit.
In this way, waste and water could be reduced while students could still enjoy the current convenience, security and cleanliness afforded by trays.
Call it a compromise between environmental friendliness and everyday practicality — a compromise we’re happy to stomach.
Comments
None 3 years, 2 months ago
STEP needs to rework its image. Currently, it comes off as a strident, humorless organization that is constantly asking Yalies to sacrifice convenience for whatever their campaign happens to be. STEP should try to come off as more aligned with student interest and less self-righteous. It'll be a lot more effective that way.
None 3 years, 2 months ago
If we were to truly choose the environment over convenience and pleasure at every juncture, Yale would go vegetarian. And eliminate overhead lighting in dining halls.
Of course, this just illustrates the absurdity of STEP's campaign.
None 3 years, 2 months ago
because being black and being a woman are mutually exclusive...
None 3 years, 3 months ago
Honestly?
If one of the best colleges in the US is choosing their convenience over the environmental impacts of food waste (in landfills it creates methane--a much more harmful greenhouse gas), water conservation, AND reduced cost, I'm about to lose hope.
I think we're at a juncture where we need to be inconvenienced. No one is asking you not to eat--just think a bit more about food waste.
Get rid of the trays and have a huge launch of the programme--weigh each meal's food waste before and after the trays are gone and see the difference.
I'm sure you can learn how to balance a plate and a drink.
None 3 years, 3 months ago
I think we should have waiters. That way, we can order our food and the wait staff can bring it to us. This would make me feel more at home where we had butlers and chefs.
None 3 years, 3 months ago
i like how the YDN's idea of compromise is to make it more inconvenient to get a tray.
what a joke.
None 3 years, 3 months ago
When I was visiting friends at Harvard during The Game, they had all gone trayless. If Harvard can do it, so can we.
None 3 years, 3 months ago
I urge Yale to get rid of trays. Student opinion? When did that ever matter? If the dining halls get rid of the trays, will students not eat on campus? The answer is a simple no. If Yale makes the switch, then students will be forced to adopt. I believe that trays are unnecessary and wasteful, and that this is one of the simplest things we can do to cut back on water, detergent, and food going to waste.
None 3 years, 3 months ago
In the short-term at least, the dining halls would still keep the tray carts out, and we would stack our plates, bowls, silverware, and cups on empty trays that are kept in the tray carts. So we wouldn't be totally trayless, but we'd probably use about one-tenth the number we use now. Dining services emphasizes its role as a service provider. While it recognizes the environmental benefits of trayless dining, it will go only as far as students want. That means that as more and more students go trayless, dining services will find a sensible way to handle dishes and make trayless dining as convenient as dining with trays. We just need to make it clear that many of us want to go trayless.
Dining services has made it clear that trays will always be available at the very least by request, since the dining hall serves both senior faculty, some of whom might have an easier time with trays than without, and people with disabilities, for whom the same might be true.
None 3 years, 3 months ago
Josh, is it really really hard? Honestly, efforts have been made to promote changes in student behavior. STEP coordinators actually stand at the entrance to the dining hall, reminding Yale students to simply consider the concept of waste when filling their plates. I don't agree that trayless dining should be instituted permanently at this moment, but I can't see the harm in a trial, at least in some of the dining halls, considering the success this movement has had at other Universities.
None 3 years, 3 months ago
if uconn can do it then so can yale!
None 3 years, 3 months ago
also, where would we put the plates when we are done eating if we have no trays???
None 3 years, 3 months ago
Carrying a tray is definitely not more difficult (you can hold all your food in one hand if you really want to, without even learning those waitering skills you've always wanted!); it really is just a matter of convenience. I don't know if that issue really counterbalances the tackiness/cost/portions arguments, though; I definitely agree with the idea of a trial period.
None 3 years, 3 months ago
Dear Mr. "What?" (comments 1 & 5),
Please reread the first response to your confused comment from the alum.
Let me try to explain this to you in VERY simple words. Poems marking events and occasions ("occasional poems") are not common today. Most presidential inaugurations, for example, do not have them. It is unlikely in the extreme that an occasional poem has been commissioned since the inauguration by any of your silly suggestions such as a "museum" or a "music festival" or "Yale." (btw, A "music festival"??) In any event, most great American poets have probably never done an occasional poem. That is just not a big part of what poetry is about today. Poets publish their poems, and sometimes read them, but to compose a poem for an occasion is a rare and, frankly, very difficult thing. This particular assignment was especially unusual, since it had the largest audience for an occasional poem, possibly ever. But Professor Alexander is not a great poet because she got this assignment, or because of any other occasional poem she might have written (I'm not aware of any). She's a great poet because of her regular, non-occasional work, which is often more historical. It's really fascinating stuff. I particularly like The Venus Hottentot. You should perhaps consider reading it sometime. (Not that I expect you ever would. It is obvious from your comments that not only do you not read poetry, you also have almost certainly never taken any English class at Yale in which poems were any significant part of the material, or you wouldn't be quite THIS clueless.)
I also want to briefly respond (although this is such a waste of time!) to your ignorant NAACP-bashing. As far as the NAACP goes, anyone, liberal or conservative, should be able to acknowledge that it is the most important of America's many civil rights organizations. The NAACP's Legal Defense Fund brought us Brown v. Board of Education. Every major civil rights group of which I am aware -- including conservative activist groups, which you seem more likely to respect -- has modeled itself in significant part on the NAACP and/or NAACP-LDF. If you have a nomination for a more important civil rights organization, you should have offered it. I don't think there is much of a contest. Every intelligent conservative person who knows anything about the last 100 years of American civil rights history respects the importance of the NAACP (even if they disagree with it on many current questions). I think it would be very difficult to make the case that any other civil rights group even close to as important, but if you want, try. (One contender with as important a role, I think, is the ACLU, but I think they're more of a civil liberties group.) Marking 100 years of the NAACP is an important American milestone.
Of course, none of this matters to people like you. This article wasn't about the NAACP. You just want to use the fact that a BLACK poet was chosen by a BLACK president and a BLACK civil rights group (omg! black conspiracy!) as evidence that she's no good. Because although you'd never say it this way, and you'll pretend this is not true, the fact is, unless WHITES approve of someone's work, you don't believe it's any good.
Well, I've got news for you. Professor Alexander's work has won tremendous and deserved acclaim from a wide range of critics. The vast majority of them are white like you. (Phew!) So please give it a rest. If you want to criticize this poem, as some commenter did above, then great. Do it. But don't spew this "affirmative action," "handout" junk in my YDN. Your monumental level of ignorance is embarrassing to the rest of us.
None 3 years, 3 months ago
carrying plates and glasses without trays is really really hard. i've tried and made a fool of myself on numerous occasions. please keep the trays. at least for those of us who need them.
None 3 years, 3 months ago
Seriously YDN? I mean, I don't do the trayless thing for sustainable reasons, but rather, it's an ease thing. I don't think I've ever spilled something, ever had issues with forks and knives, etc.
Clearly, some Yalies just can't balance stuff. It's a skill. Learn it.
None 3 years, 3 months ago
Aramark has an interest in reducing the portions consumed or wasted since it impacts their profit margin. The study should be reexamined from a consumer perspective.
None 3 years, 3 months ago
not to mention that carrying a drink with a single plate + silverware is already a huge challenge!
None 3 years, 3 months ago
Get rid of the trays because they look tacky. We have gorgeous dining halls and beautiful college china, yet we carry everything on typical serving trays. It really throws off the whole ivy dining hall vibe
None 3 years, 3 months ago
As an alum who teaches at an institution that has eliminated trays without great travail, I'm a little dismayed that Yale students today fear they won't be able to manage the challenge. Shades of Gerry Ford (Yale Law '41), of whom LBJ remarked, "He can't fart and chew gum at the same time." So much for environmental stewardship or fiscal prudence, YDN.
None 3 years, 3 months ago
The dining hall trays are analogous to plastic shopping bags, in that they are both conveniences to which we are all accustomed, but they are both simply unnecessary. The mild inconvenience of going back for seconds, or making multiple trips before sitting down, is something we could all learn to live with, and it would help reduce the real environmental costs of wasted food, water, and detergent.
At the very least, Yale Dining should consider a trial period without any trays, to let people see for themselves that it is really not so bad.
None 3 years, 3 months ago
Don't be Fooled: Aramark no longer runs the dining halls, so there is no longer a "profit margin" but, more likely, a goal of minimizing expenses especially when there is a budgetary shortfall. Granted, the Yale employees who now run the dining halls probably have performance targets that involve reducing costs; however, the consumer, Yale students, could actually benefit in a reduction of costs if the dining halls could then use the savings in improving other areas of service.
To the News and to "b": Carrying a tray is, arguably, more difficult than balancing a single plate in one hand and a drink and utensils in another. Students often arrange their food items such that they shift the center of mass away from the center of the tray.
None 3 years, 3 months ago
@1 -- This kind of comment is why I shouldn't read comments on the YDN.
She's an unusually gifted poet. In addition, she teaches at Yale. We are lucky to have her. Not all talented writers who teach at universities are as friendly or as humble as Professor Alexander.
Now she mentions that she has another assignment to write an occasional poem, this time for the most important civil rights organization in the country. Occasional poems are really not her job, but this is nice news.
Why does the YDN comments section have to be filled with junk like the comment from "What?," who has decided to use this happy moment in the life of Yale and poetry to go on a pointless riff about affirmative action and "handouts" -- the kind of riff that obnoxious, not-very-liberal white kids always want to go on any time there's a story in the news about any accomplishment by a black person. Please -- give it a rest! I remember people like you from when I was in college, and you sounded just as clueless then as you do now.
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