Group Proposal

Mitchell Lui, Christopher Mekhtiyev, John Garcia, Wally Hasnat

April 2, 2019

Quality over Quantity:

Lack of Variety and Quality in Cafeteria Food

The lack of food variety and quality has been an issue for many students at the City College of New York. Students are becoming tired of repeatedly eating the same type of over-priced meals. The majority of students have to rush to the NAC Cafeteria and get something quick to eat before their next class starts. Over time, it is tiring to be constantly eating the same food; the salad bar always has leftovers and the pizza section always has the same toppings. A change in variety and quality of food in the NAC cafeteria needs to be attained in order for students to have a more nutritious and healthy meal. The lack of access to a healthy meal can negatively affect a student’s physical and mental health and their ability to perform well in school (Maynard, Meyer, Perlman, & Kirkpatrick, 2018). A change can make the meal more adaptive for dietary and religious students. Based on the surveys, students who actively eat at the NAC Cafeteria believe that the amount of money they spend is not worth the quality of food that they are given. The purpose of this proposal is to investigate and find alternatives for students at CCNY that eat at the NAC cafeteria, who are unsatisfied with the quality, prices, and variety of the food available.

Action Plan

  1. Brainstorm questions for a survey to gather data on CCNY student’s opinion towards the  price, variety and quality of the food that the NAC cafeteria offers.
  2. Gather data for the survey.
  3. Visit the cafeteria to see the prices and variety of food offered.
  4. Organize the data from the surveys and display it as a chart/graph.
  5. Schedule meetings to work as a group.
  6. Analyze the data to discuss solutions to be executed.
  7. Investigate the budget of the company, Centerplate, that supplies the cafeteria with food.
  8. Analyze what is the best possible solution considering the budget and desires of CCNY students.

Cost/Benefits

1. Adding Chipotle and Panda Express2.Decreasing Prices of Existing Vendors by 7.5%
Total Costs-$55,000-$35,000
Total benefits$85,000$75,000
Benefit-Cost Ratio1.552.14

Our proposal is comprised of two different but related solutions. For our first solution of adding Chipotle and Panda Express to the list of vendors in our cafeteria, it was estimated to be about $55,000 in expenses for the open spaces for the stores, addition of staff, and the contract with the food companies. For our second solution, decreasing prices by 7.5% for all existing vendors, we would be making the existing choices very affordable. A popular request from the survey was to decrease the prices and this would be a reasonable percentage of reduction as we have to consider the profit made by these vendors and the school. By lowering the prices a fair amount more students would visit the cafeteria and buy food since they wouldn’t feel as if they were wasting too much money.

Experience

Mitchell Lui: A freshman majoring in Biomedical Engineer. He was born and raised in Brooklyn. He attended Leon M. Goldstein High School for the Science for the past four years from September 2014 to June 2018. Throughout his time in highschool, he grew a strong passion for math and science. He decided to major in engineering due to the fact that every generation in his family majored in business and he did not want to follow in their footsteps, but to create a different path for himself. In addition, he was able to continue playing handball, a sport that he has been playing since the age of 9. Although handball may be his favorite sport, he is also interested in basketball and working out. However, he is honestly open to anything.

Wally Hasnat: His legal name is Md Waliul Hasnat but he has been going by Wally since elementary. He is Bengali-American and grew up in Midtown Hell’s Kitchen. He went to Baruch High School, which is an actual high school that is not correlated with the college. He enjoys being around his friends most of the time and playing basketball with the boys. He works at Khan’s Tutorial and tutors little first and second graders along with his two younger brothers when he gets home. His chosen major is Computer Engineering and he is trying his hardest to stay focused on exploring this field as this is something he would like to enjoy.

Christopher Mekhtiyev: A freshman at The City College of New York. His intended major is Civil Engineering and he likes the idea of designing construction projects and helping carry out would even like to start his own company one day.  But before he realized he wanted to pursue that career he used to want to study Criminal Justice or Finance. He was born and raised in Sunset Park, Brooklyn but currently lives in Bay Ridge. He grew up speaking both English and Spanish and is fluent in both.  

John Garcia: Was born and raised in Queens. When he was about 11 years old, he always dreamt of being an FBI agent, helping  save lives and always being on the go. However, that soon changed during his junior year of high school. He went to a vocational school by Long Island City, called Queens Vocational and Technical High School. What made his high school very special to him, was that it was a CTE school (Career and Technical Education). In his high school, he had several “shop” classes to choose from. A “shop” class referred to a particular field of study a student wants to study for. He chose pre-engineering as his shop class. In there, he was exposed to not only lectures but learned to implement those lectures with hands on experience. He learned different types of splicing methods, such as electrical splicing, which is the joining of wires in electrical wiring, optical splicing, the joining of optical fibers and mechanical splicing, a non-permanent splice between two fibers. Towards the end of his junior year, he was pleased to apply for a Con Edison Summer Internship. He decided to apply, and went for the interview, after a month they called him saying he got accepted as a Summer Intern. By working for Con Edison, he learned a lot more of what he really wanted to be. From the day his internship had finished, he knew that he wanted to be an Electrical Engineer, and now he is here at The City College of New York as a freshman reaching his goal to be a successful Electrical Engineer.

Conclusion

All in all, we found that the majority of students that we surveyed felt that the prices of the food in our cafeteria is overpriced and that they have grown bored with the food options available. Nearly 50,000 CUNY undergraduates are facing food insecurity. This is when people don’t have the necessary financial resources to feed themselves adequately. Students that go through this are often struggling to avoid hunger throughout the school year. Having to pay for college is already a heavy burden for many students, so dealing with overpriced foods at school should not be one. Another issue is that many students still don’t want to go the cafeteria because the food that is offered is not appealing. The CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute has already stated that they recognize this issue and they know that improving the quality of the foods and lowering prices at campus cafeterias is an important step to bring more students in (Nargi, 2019).

Based on the 52 people that we surveyed, we found out that people are unsatisfied with the types of foods that are currently offered and feel that the foods are way too expensive. This is why we decided that the best solutions would be to either have the school add Panda Express and Chipotle to have popular food options for students, or to decrease the prices of the foods that are already being sold. The addition of Panda Express and Chipotle will benefit students and the school as well because more students want to visit the cafeteria and spend money.  They will buy food more often because there is a larger variety to choose from and they will be eating a more balanced meal which means their GPAs are less likely to decline. A fair and reasonable reduction of the prices of foods that are already being sold will also benefit both the students and the school because reasonable prices means many more students will feel more desire to go buy food at the cafeteria and the school will benefit from this financially over time.

Works Cited

Maynard, M., Meyer, S. B., Perlman, C. M., & Kirkpatrick, S. I. (2018). Experiences of Food Insecurity among Undergraduate Students: “You Can’t Starve Yourself through School.” Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 48(2), 130–148. Retrieved from http://ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1189978&site=ehost-live

Nargi, L. (2019, January 24). 20 Percent of CUNY Students Are Food Insecure. Can New Initiatives Help? Retrieved from https://www.ediblemanhattan.com/foodshed-2/university-student-hunger/

Appendix

Forms response chart. Question title: Are you satisfied with the variety of foods available?. Number of responses: 52 responses.

Figure 1

Forms response chart. Question title: Do you feel that the foods are overpriced?. Number of responses: 52 responses.

Figure 2

Forms response chart. Question title: Do you feel that the quality of the food is worth the amount of money you are spending?. Number of responses: 52 responses.

Figure 3

Forms response chart. Question title: If no, what types of foods would you like to see?. Number of responses: 52 responses.

Figure 4