Vanderbilt Student Government launched an online portal allowing the student body to submit ideas to Vanderbilt Campus Dining. Available on VSG’s website, this form is meant to address any comments, concerns or ideas that students may have about anything related to Campus Dining.
“The online portal is one of VSG’s new changes this year,” said Diya Mathur, a member of VSG’s Campus Life Committee. “If you just go on the VSG website, you can immediately see that there is an icon allowing students to present a new idea about campus dining. Anyone on campus can submit a complaint as soon as they have an issue with dining.”
The Campus Life Committee of VSG receives these complaints and meets with representatives of Campus Dining once a month to discuss them.
According to Mathur, one goal of the online portal is for VSG to act as an accessible intermediary between the student body and Campus Dining.
“We want Campus Dining to be an ideal experience for everyone as much as possible,” said Mathur. “We want to make sure that students know who to tell when they have issues. Everyone has ideas, and we want to make sure those ideas are heard by the right people.”
In addition to VSG’s online portal, Campus Dining has an online comment card on its website for students to submit ideas and complaints. While both methods will inform representatives of Campus Dining about student opinions, VSG’s Campus Life Committee acts as an advocate for the student body during their monthly meetings with Campus Dining.
This online portal comes as a response to strong student reactions to new changes in Campus Dining, such as a decrease in portion sizes, the replacement of Pi and Leaf with the allergen-friendly 2301 and the cap of rollover money from unused meal plans.
“I think that a lot of people directly emailed Campus Dining for these issues, and that works too, but it would be great to put all of these ideas into one form,” said Mathur. “I think a lot of people are saying the same thing, and it’s important that it’s all heard by the right people at the end of the day.”
According to Mathur, VSG’s broad goals this year include increased student accessibility to representatives and the transparency of new programs and initiatives.
“Hopefully by the end of the year, everyone will know about the online portal,” said Mathur. “The whole goal at the end of the day is to make sure that people know what VSG is doing and how they can access us.”