Furman University Featured in New York Times Article: With Robot Deliveries and Outdoor Tents, Campus Dining Will Be Very Different

Excerpt from the article:

By Becky Vuksta’s calculations, the new socially distanced dining-hall setup at Furman University in Greenville, S.C., will serve 12 students a minute, or 720 students per hour. Not bad, but still not fast enough to feed the school’s 2,700 students in the rush between classes.

So Ms. Vuksta, Furman’s director of auxiliary services, has added two grab-and-go meal stations (one that can accommodate 60 students per hour and another that can handle 180). She also plans a pop-up restaurant outside the main library that will serve street food from around the world, for students and especially staff and faculty, who as a safety precaution will not be allowed to visit the main dining hall.

The number of students that can be served per minute is not a normal concern for college and university dining administrators, who in recent years have tried to distinguish themselves on the quality and variety of their food, and the sense of community that it can bring to a campus. Over the last decade, the food served in college cafeterias has transformed from the butt of jokes into a major perk; the dining hall is often the first stop on campus tours.

Because of the coronavirus, however, nothing about this year is going to be normal. At campuses across the country, self-serve stations, where students can make their own salads or taco bowls, will be eliminated; instead, masked-and-gloved workers, shielded by plexiglass barriers, will serve nearly everything. Gone, too, will be condiment and coffee stations, replaced by single-serving ketchup and salad-dressing packets and paper cups that many schools were triumphantly phasing out in an effort to reduce waste. Several universities are even using robots to prepare food and deliver it.

At Furman, where students will return to campus for the fall semester on Aug. 18, Ms. Vuksta plans to offer insulated, reusable grocery bags so students can carry out multiple to-go meals, and is considering adding picnic tables for outdoor eating.

But the only thing that is sure is that plans will change. “You’re trying to read a crystal ball and the fact is no one knows how this is going to pan out,” she said. “It can be stressful.”

Read the full article from the New York Times here.