One of PLU’s major changes this year has been the removal of Saturday dinners. This change has been attributed to the understaffing of Saturday night shifts in both janitorial and Commons staff.
Reports state that student workers were not attending their shifts due to high levels of call outs or no-shows. If a staff member no-shows to their shift the Commons requires employees to shift swap. Additionally the number of students attending Saturday dinner wasn’t enough, so food freshly made by the Commons was going to waste.
Another note is that the Commons and many other areas on campus were asked by the university to find more cost savings within their departments.
The Commons’ solution was getting rid of Saturday dinners. According to Erin McGinnis, Associate Vice of Hospitality and Retail, prices were raised all across the board to combat the cutting back of hours. She is quoted as saying, “…if we had not made the cuts in the hours, we would have had to raise them even more than we did.” McGinnnis emphasized that the key was to meet the University’s bottom line, “But we have to make a certain margin on that to be able to provide a bottom line back to the university. It is a business.”
McGinnis then said, “[the change in funds is] going to the university as money that’s being used to support some other program in the university to make the university’s budget balanced.” Ultimately, the end of Saturday dinners can be attributed to the University’s desire to cut back on cost and save more.
