It has been nearly three weeks since new students moved into the residence halls around campus in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. In light of the circumstances, UO Housing implemented new rules and regulations in order to prevent an outbreak within the dorms. Many of these rules also extended to the university’s various dining halls.
Dining halls are one of the areas around campus that are frequently visited by students living in the dorms. For many of those who enroll in the university dining plan, the dining halls are their primary source of food. Policies around COVID-19 in the dining halls are as one would expect; masks are required, social distancing is encouraged through signage on the walls and floors and sanitizing stations are set up throughout the dining areas.
Related: “Student living: RAs deal with the new normal”
“We have greeters at the doors who make sure that people wear their masks and wear them properly,” Audrey Ettel, a student worker at the Hamilton dining hall said. “We have hand sanitizer stations set up around the area, sometimes not all of them are full, but we do have a system in place to check them.”
There are regulations on the amount of employees allowed to be at any given workstation to ensure social distancing. Sanitization has also been a recurring job for those who work in the dining halls. However, with these measures in place, student workers still hold concerns about the safety of the dining halls.
According to both Ettel and Nanju Suh, another student employee at Hamilton dining hall, none of the dining hall employees are being regularly tested for COVID-19.
“The University has not implemented mandatory COVID-19 testing for employees at this time,” Saul Hubbard, a UO spokesperson, said in an email. “Although there have been voluntary testing opportunities with priority given to employees whose positions require them to work on campus.”
According to the email sent by Hubbard, the university will work throughout the fall to enhance its COVID-19 testing capacity. At this time, OHA guidelines recommend against mandatory testing of employees who are symptomless. Instead, they recommend screening daily for symptoms. All UO employees and students are required to perform a symptom self-check before coming to campus.
Another concern of Suh and Ettel’s is due to a few cases of student misconduct within the dining halls.
“With how short-staffed we are, it’s hard to get a coordinator or manager to come and kick someone out who is repeatedly not listening to our guidelines,” Suh said. “But it has only really been an issue with larger groups.”
The rule that students are to keep their masks on unless actively eating or drinking has been ignored by many who use the dining hall, according to Suh.
Student workers and other dining hall staff are not in an enforcement role, according to Tom Driscoll, the director of dining services and associate director of Housing. “Dining hall employees are asked to report student violations and ‘send it up the chain.’”
Suh and Ettel have also been expressing stress over the lack of employees that are scheduled during shifts.
“Something I am realizing while I am working there is that, because of the limited staff we have, there aren’t enough people to serve the food,” Suh said. “That has been really stressful for the students there.”
According to Driscoll, the lack of employees is not due to COVID-19. In fact, it is not any different from how hiring has been in the past for dining halls at the beginning of fall term.
“It’s always sort of a mad rush to fill positions,” Driscoll said. “We have a lot of students looking for jobs, and I just brought in two more people to help with the processing part of that to get all the shifts filled.”
