SUNY Brockport dining halls fight against COVID
September 20, 2021
In March of 2020, the coronavirus hit SUNY Brockport. Since then Brockport has been working to keep all students safe.
As said by the SUNY COVID-19 Case Tracker, SUNY Brockport has administered the 4th most COVID test among all other SUNY schools to date, at 82,601. Of those tests, Brockport has had only 298 positive cases, a 0.36% positive rate that is significantly lower than the average percentage in the Finger Lakes region. In order to make this happen, Brockport closed its classrooms and turned on the computers. For the past roughly two and a half semesters, Brockport has been mainly online, only this semester have in-person classes start. For some, online classes were easy. Sit at home, do what you want when you want. Others though were forced to live on campus, which turned out to be a bit more challenging.
At the very beginning of the pandemic, the school was forced to not only turn to online classes but either shut down or limit the majority of their on-campus services. One of those, being the dining halls.
Extreme measures were taken in order to keep all students and staff safe in the dining halls, while also doing their best to provide all students with the meals they needed. In an email, the Director of Dining Services at Brockport Auxiliary Services Corporation (BASC), Cathy Legacy, talked about some of the precautions the dining halls have taken to stop the spread of COVID.
“Mask requirements, hygiene etiquette, frequent hand washing, daily health screenings, mandatory testing, stay home policies, cleaning protocols, frequent changing of serving utensils, etc,” are the examples that Legacy gave.
Legacy also touched on the loss of employees that Brockport and the rest of the nation have faced.
“Many employees have left the food service industry through the pandemic. We have lost a number of employees as many in the USA have had a shortage of employees…We have never seen a shortage of employees and candidates for employment as we have this year.” She noted how this has lead to a supply chain shortage across America.
Legacy does believe though that the future of SUNY Brockport dining halls is bright. Technology has been a huge factor in making it through the pandemic and helping BASC come out better than ever. Just a few of the new services that BASC has added include online ordering and touch-free drink machines. Legacy is very excited about the future of online ordering, but states “at this time we are still trying to hire more staff to be able to expand our offerings.”
Last year with the campus practically shut down, the dining halls and BASC struggled. Brockport student Hannah Mcnamara called the dining hall experience last year “a bit disappointing.” She felt that “there were only ever a few options and it was just recycled every week, which got boring very fast.” She said in an email that she and her roommate “would just make food in our rooms because going to the dining hall just didn't seem worth it.” Mcnamara did make sure to include that she believed the employees did the very best they could given the circumstances.
BASC has made it through the worst of the pandemic, and they can’t wait for what the future has in store.
Sources:
Hannah McNamara, SUNY Brockport student, hmcna1@brockport.edu
Cathy Legacy, Director of Dining Services, cathy.legacy@basc1.org
SUNY COVID-19 Case Tracker https://www.suny.edu/covid19-tracker/
