By Masudur Rahman

Senior Reporter

Rubbery chicken, no kosher food, $17.71 for a pepperoni pizza at a catered event in the Oakland Center and having the wrong food delivered late, are just some of the reasons why so many students are unhappy with the services of Chartwells, Oakland University’s food vendor.

The biggest issue students have with Chartwells is the high prices, but other problems include not having cheaper options for catering, the quality of service, diversity of food available and lack of choices for students who have dietary or religious preferences.

Leaders from student organizations and other students directly voiced these concerns to OU and Chartwells administrators Monday at the Oakland University Student Congress meeting.

The two main resolutions offered by OU and Chartwells representatives at the meeting were to keep the lines of communications open between students and the administrations, and the creation of focus groups to address these problems in the future.

But a lot of students said they were unsatisfied with the answers they were given by OU and Chartwells, and said that more need to be made.

Chartwells and OU

Chartwells is one of the largest food service providers at all types of schools in America.

Rather than run its own food services, OU contracted with Chartwells. Except for the vending machines, Chartwells runs all of the food concessions at OU — Cafe O’Bears, the Pioneer Food Court in the OC and Vandenberg dining hall.

Chartwells also offers catering services on campus, and is the only organization allowed to cater food for events and meetings held at the Oakland Center and at Vandenberg Hall. This means that students cannot have food catered by anyone else or buy outside food and bring it in themselves for their events or meetings that take place in the OC or in Vandenberg.

Chartwells took over in providing food services to OU in 2002, after OU let their previous contract with vendor Aramark expire that year. Chartwells originally had a five-year contract with OU ending in 2007, but in 2005, OU extended its contract for seven more years, so Chartwells will provide OU’s food services until 2014.

Students’ poor experiences

Some students say they’ve experienced problems with Chartwells for a long time.

Danielle Fallis, chair of the Student Activities Funding Board, said that she gets bombarded with questions and problems student organizations have with Chartwells. As SAFB chair, she works with student organizations to approve the allocation of funds for student organizations’ events.

“People complain to me [about Chartwells] because they don’t know who else to talk to,” she said. “Most of my office hours are spent dealing with that.”

Daniel Evola also heard the problems. “When I became the student body vice president this year, one of the first complaints I heard about was Chartwells.”  

OUSC members said the main concerns they hear from students are about high prices, and the varying quality of food and customer service.

The latest incident, the last straw for some, was on Sept. 13 during an SAFB training session where student organizations learned how to allocate money from SAFB.

“We were told [by Chartwells] that we would have a showcase of the best foods, showing us new food choices they will have this year,” Evola said. “But when lunchtime rolled around, the showcase [consisted of] chili dogs and ‘walking tacos’ (a small bag of Doritos chips with meat and vegetables in it).”

He also said there were no options for vegetarians. “It was a big let down because we were assured by Chartwells of new and healthy options.”

Evola said OUSC started discussing the issue after that and sent a formal letter of complaint two weeks ago, and invited Chartwells representatives to come to an OUSC meeting so the issue could be discussed publicly.

On Friday, OUSC members, OU administrators and Chartwells administrators discussed the issue in an OU food service committee meeting, led by Oakland Center’s director Richard Fekel. Evola told The Oakland Post that at this meeting, Chartwells’ executive chef Gerald Gatto took responsibility for the mishap at the Sept. 13 event, and explained that he wanted to provide the students with a less expessive alternative.

Oct. 20 OUSC meeting

The OUSC meeting lasted from 4-6 p.m. and was attended by about 40-50 students, in addition to OUSC members. Like all OUSC formal sessions, the meeting was open to the public, and OUSC specifically encouraged students and student organizations to attend the meeting to raise their concerns directly to Chartwells directors.

Andrew Willows, the director of Chartwells at OU, was at the meeting, as was Fekel, representing the OC. They both listened to comments from OUSC members and from the other attendees and answered their questions.

Comments and questions ranged from high praise to disappointment to curiosity.

OUSC legislator Jordan Twardy asked what student organizations with a limited budget and a desire to offer a better variety than pizza and chicken tenders could do.

Willows recommended that they communicate with the Chartwells chef, catering and himself to work out a solution.

Lebanese Club president Rami Haddad, said his organization felt Chartwells didn’t offer enough international food for catering. Willows said that students should talk with Chartwells to specify what kind of food they want, and that just because something isn’t on the menu doesn’t mean it’s not available.

“If you tell us what you’re looking for, our chef can definitely work with you,” he said. “Our chef can do international food too.”

Haddad said that he’s tried that before, but he wasn’t happy with the result. “I ordered tabbouli, and I got rice … that’s not even close,” he said.

Haddad, as well as other students, said that Chartwells doesn’t always provide food to people who have certain religious needs, like Muslim students who only eat halal meat.

OUSC legislator Jake Isley, who is Jewish, said that unless Chartwells buys kosher food from outside vendors or has an actual rabbi in the kitchen, there is no way that Chartwells can provide Jewish students with kosher food.

In response, Fekel said that in such cases the OC and Chartwells had made a few exceptions to use outside-catered food in the past. “If you have certain needs, just bring it up to us — I’m sure we can work something out,” he said.

Many students said that because their organizations spend a lot of money on Chartwells catered food, they should expect to see a certain standard of service in return.

OUSC said that SAFB allocated $77,000 or 64 percent of its $120,000 budget last winter to student organizations to purchase food for events from Chartwells.

A major concern at the meeting was the price of food for catering, which many said was too high. Willows replied that because of things like labor costs, inflation and the rising price of food, Chartwells’ prices went up.

The Chartwells catering prices for 2008-09 increased 4.3 percent from last year. According to the contract between OU and Chartwells, unless an agreement is reached between the two parties, Chartwells can raise its catering prices each year by either 3 percent or by the U.S. Department of Labor Consumer’s Price Index for Urban Wage Earner’s and Clerical Worker’s U.S. Average, whichever amount is higher. In an interview, Fekel said that the 4.3 percent increase this year was agreed upon by OU and Chartwells.

Many students, like Evola and WXOU Program Director Erik Anderson, said they believe one solution would be to lift the ban on bringing in food from the outside without going through Chartwells.

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br />”The worst thing is, you can’t escape it,” said Evola in an interview. “You can’t go to Busch’s or Wal-Mart to pick up a $2 lemonade.”

“We wanted to order pizza [for an event in the OC], but Chartwells prices are very high,” said Anderson at the Monday meeting.

The price for a cheese pizza at a student event is $14.58, for a pepperoni pizza it’s $17.71. A gallon of lemonade costs $8.36.

Fekel cited the exclusivity-catering clause in the OU-Chartwells contract. “I have to fall back on the contract,” he said at the meeting in response to Anderson’s suggestion. “The contract is what the contract is.” He also said that Chartwells has made significant investments in OU, including renovating the Vandenberg dining hall and bringing in offerings like Chick-Fil-A and Wild Greens to the Pioneer Food Court, and that Chartwells offsets these investments through sales.

“If the OC was open to other catering businesses, Chartwells would lose a lot of business,” said Fekel in an interview Tuesday. He also said that if student organizations bring in food from outside, that organization could lose the privilege of holding events in the OC. He said he never had to do that, but he very occasionally has to give warnings.

At the Monday meeting, Fekel reminded students that the ban on outside catering is only restricted to the OC and Vandenberg Hall. “You can have [non-Chartwells catered] food in another building.”

Fallis said that although that option is available, it’s not very practical because there are very few places in other buildings that student organizations can use for meetings. Many times they are already fully booked.

Craig Brown, an OUSC legislator, asked why OU food services hasn’t been up for bidding between different businesses recently, because he believes it would reduce costs.

Fekel said, out of the three major food vendors, he believes Chartwells is the cheapest and most customer-friendly.

Many students, like Haddad, said they believe that because Chartwells has a monopoly it is free to “jack up the prices.”

Fallis said that one of her main issues is accountability, and believed that it goes both ways.

“If student orgs turn in a catering order late, they have to pay a late fee. If student orgs are held accountable, so why not Chartwells?” she asked. “If the food is late or is the wrong food, money should be taken out of the bill. It should be just given, not even asked for.”

Willows said in an interview after the meeting regarding the two-way late fees issue that “Chartwells and SAFB will discuss policy and procedure to make sure there are no miscommunications.”

Willows and Fekel both stressed that communication was key, and that they were glad the lines of communication were open. They also said they were looking forward to the creation of the focus groups to discuss student issues with food.

However, after the meeting many students, like Evola, said they did not feel that the solutions offered were enough and that their questions had been answered. “These focus groups could be beneficial, but for now, it seems like something they’re hiding behind to not give us real answers,” said Evola.

Many were glad that some dialogue was taking place though. “It’s a good start, but hopefully it’s just the beginning,” said student body President Steve Clark in an interview after the meeting.

Some OUSC members said they were concerned because they heard that every couple years, some students get upset about food services and try to set up a dialogue, but that the attempts didn’t amount to much.

Many OUSC members, however, said they were optimistic that this will not happen this year.

“I can’t say it’s not going to happen, but I hope not,” said Clark. “And the way the OUSC is energized and with how they’re doing, I can’t see why it would.”

“We don’t plan on fading away this year,” said Evola.