Cafeterias and Millennial College Students (Financial Cutbacks) - Part 2

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about my university's cafeteria - "Cafeterias and Millennial College Students (Financial Cutbacks)". I have not received any additional information about the cafeteria at my university, but I did read a few articles about other university cafeterias and how they are choosing to cope with the rising food costs.


Fall 2008 = No Trays

Bruce Horovitz, a USA Today contributor, wrote an article about this food service transition process titled, "More College Cafeterias Dump Food Trays". According to the article, food service companies like Aramark and Sodexho are creating a college dining experience that is more "sample and toss" than "take all you want". This move perpetuated a 50 percent decrease in the amount of daily waste that cafeterias produce. New York University reports a food waste reduction of 44.03 ounces per tray to less than 2.37 ounces. 

Scratching the Recipes?

JJ Hermes, of the Chronicle of Higher Education, wrote "Soaring Food Prices Squeeze Dining Halls". He reported that universities like Louisana State University may choose to reduce the amount of ingredients it takes to complete a recipe. In the article, the director of dining services stated, "Maybe we're going to put half an ounce less cheese on a slice of pizza".  Ohio University cut their food service costs by making many items from scratch (i.e. - cookies, rolls, and pizza dough).


Increasing the Costs of Meal Plans

Alternatively, some cafeterias are taking the easy route by increasing the dining costs. The highest meal plan fee increase was reported by Louisiana State University (LSU), which will increase the cost of their meal plans by 7 percent this fall. The LSU meal plan fee increase is followed by a 4.5 increase at the University of Miami and a 3.5 increase by Ohio University.

These articles leave me with a few questions:

• Will the college buffet continue to exist?
• Will the trayless and recipe ingredient reduction approach cause college students lose the freshmen 15 stigma?
• Will college students choose the healthiest food if they have to choose one or two items at a time. 

-Millennial Professor

Gas Prices and Our Undergraduates!

As all of you know, gas prices are the highest that they have been in a very long time. Many of our students do not live on campus and they are feeling the impact of the gas prices.


The number of students enrolling in online courses is increasing.
College students at most colleges and universities do not live on campus and they have to commute to campus. The cost of commuting is rising with the gas prices and let's not forget about the wear and tear on the student's automobile. Students are feeling the crunch and are deciding to enroll in online and hybrid (face to face and internet instruction) classes.

According to Ed Klonoski, a representative of Charter Oak - Connecticut's public online college, across the nation there is a 10 percent increase in the number of students choosing to enroll in online courses.

Are faculty ready for this new demand?
As the number of students choosing to enroll in online courses increase, it seems that the number of online course offerings will increase as well. In my experience, a large number of the faculty at small and mid-sized institutions are resistant to offering online courses in their discipline. As a professor from the millennial generation, I believe that this resistance comes from the technology-centered learning curve that exists between the generations. This curve is perpetuated by the increase in internet technology and the content management systems that colleges and universities offer to their faculty and students. The blackboard.com content management system has experienced many updates that benefit almost everyone at a given university. For example, all of my grading for my face-to-face classes is conducted online by using the rubric feature and my my tests are administered online as well. This is a win-win situation, because the students gain instant access to their grades and I conserve paper and time.

However, as I stated before, many faculty are resistant to this new change and it will be interesting to see more internet-based classes are offered in the future.

Are For-Profit Institutions Taking Our Potential Students?
Since the gas prices increased, I observed fair amount of commercials advertising online degrees (associates and bachelors) through for-profit institutions. Many high school seniors and non-traditional students will have trouble gaining financial aid from private lenders (Schnurman, 2008) and they may start paying more attention to these for-profit colleges.

What will be the impact on U.S. competitiveness when this growing amount of students with degrees from for-profit institutions enter the workforce? Will these students be as competitive as students from traditional public and private institutions?

Interesting Article! - Gas Prices Driving Students to Online Courses - By Jeffery R. Young

Thanks for reading!

-MP

VOTE for the AUGUST Topic!

Readers,

Please remember to vote for the August topic by August 3rd. The selections for August are:

*Remember - VOTE ON THE MAIN PAGE OF THE BLOG!

	Minority College Students
	Reaching Millennial Students
	Gas and Its Impact on College Students
	My Experience as a Millennial Professor

You may vote for more than one! :)

-Millennial Professor

Black in America - Day 2

Last night's special focused on African American males and their impact on the black race. I expected some additional facts on education and African Americans, but this was not the subject of last night's broadcast.

As a result, I wanted to focus on the fact that there was a void in the television show about African Americans in higher education. This show missed out on some very strong issues in higher education - HBCUs/HWCUs and the success of African American undergraduates.

Between 1993 and 2003, the enrollment for African American undergraduate students increased more than 42% (Edmonds & McDonough, 2006). In 2006, these numbers reached over 2,299,000 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006).

According to NCES (2005), the nationwide African American undergraduate enrollment at HWCUs was over 1,734,000 in 2002. However, the graduation rates for these students were very low (Benton, 2001). In fact, over half of the African American undergraduate students enrolled in HWCUs fail to persist and graduate. The picture is worse for African American undergraduate students who attend HBCUs. Only 28% of these students actually complete their degrees (Gasman, Baez, Drezner, et al., 2007).

This leads me to one last sentence: What should HWCUs and HBCUs do about the African Americans (and Hispanic Americans) in higher education? Any suggestions?

-Millennial Professor