Now for some background: Sodexho is renewing its contract to provide food service to RPI, and as part of the deal, they are upgrading their facilities on campus. Part of this package is the food service provided in the McNeil Room and the Rathskeller. They have proposed a number of changes to the Union, including remodeling the entire first and second floors.

Their proposal calls for ripping out part of the Games Room and turning the entire first floor into a knock-off of a mall food court. The number of seats would stay the same, but what we now have as a Games Room would be changed to include more themed food kiosks. As for the McNeil Room, their proposal was to expand the serving area out into the room, line the wall with some new kiosks, and add various stands all over the room. Overall seating would be displaced with more serving locations.

I raised some objections to both proposals when I first saw Sodexho’s presentation two weeks ago, though only one objection was reported by The Poly, and later echoed by other students. This got me thinking, and then I found the answer in how The Poly article presented the controversy. Why would Sodexho create two rather identical, full-floor sized food courts, which would compete with one another?

There is no good business reason, since right now there is only a short time during lunch when we need more servers and cashers; and the foot traffic numbers wouldn’t justify building out and staffing both locations all day and into the night.

The answer is that they only really want one. This is their way to pacify the student leaders and, in effect, the student body into accepting one rather inappropriate proposal. We, of course, would initially be focused on defeating the worst of their plan—the McNeil Room renovation—and begin to negotiate with their proposal. This way, when there is an outcry, the proposal can be remodeled into only one location, most likely the Rathskeller, and we can have a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling in our hearts as they rip apart our Games Room and replace it with their new food court. We shouldn’t be in the position where we are negotiating down from one bad proposal into another.

I do not want to turn our Union into Sodexho’s new food court. We want food service, but we want a place to hang out with our friends. The purpose of the Union is to be the central place on campus for us, not to be another location where Sodexho can peddle to a captive audience. They should be putting this money towards reasonable upgrades and a commitment to reasonably priced food in the Union, rather than an unwanted expansion.

I do not want them to play games with the student leaders, and hopefully saying something will help. The most interesting part about weighing my concerns in public is that I can never be proven right or wrong. No one will ever admit in public that they wanted to propose an outrageous plan so they could negotiate down to what they really want. However, hopefully this has changed the way things play out.