Yale Fights to Bring Back Trays Proving They Have More Cajones Than CMC

Over at Yale, they have reversed the ban on trays at the dining halls, after some students coordinated a clever protest: by leaving the plates stacked up on the edge of the table. (Thanks to all who sent this in.)

From the Yale Daily News:

It took less than a week for Commons Dining Hall to dump its experiment with trayless dining.

The controversial initiative in the University’s largest dining facility was scrapped Thursday evening after Yale Dining officials received overwhelmingly negative feedback from students. Executive Director of Dining Rafi Taherian said Thursday it did not make sense to continue an initiative that seemed contrary to the wishes of the Yale community.

“Yale Dining listens,” Teherian said. “We don’t have ego. We’re responsive.”

Yale Dining removed trays from their traditional locations in Commons beginning with a pre-term dinner for freshmen Sunday night, although dining hall staff continued to provide trays upon request.

Commons received about 200 comments asking for a reversion to dining with trays this week and only six comments in support of the change.

Yale Dining administrators said many of the comments appear to have been submitted by a handful of students. Many comments shared with the News complain of the difficulty of carrying multiple plates and glasses without a tray; many of these same comments reference the needs of athletes. Pete Balsam ’11, a member of the varsity football team, said his team sometimes spent meals filling out comment cards together.

The football team has been particularly vocal about the need for trays, Commons General Manager Thomas Peterlik said. Some members of the team did not clear their plates after one meal this week, Peterlik said, instead leaving them in a towering stack at the end of a table in protest. Two members of the team denied knowledge of the incident.

Peterlik said trayless dining also generated longer and slower lines for food and dish deposit. Spillage increased because foods and beverages slipped directly onto counters and floors, Peterlik said, where in the past they would have fallen onto trays.

Director of Residential Dining Regenia Phillips said she believes Yale could still go trayless, but said she believes the culture among students has to change first.

“It won’t work until it’s cool not to use a tray,” she said.

Marcus Strong ’11, who serves as project head for the Student Taskforce for Environmental Partnership, said he and other STEP coordinators are committed to changing mind-sets on environmental issues, and plan to encourage trayless dining in the residential colleges this year.

Chris Lopez, Cabrones Founding Member, Agrees With Me About Race-Based Segregation

Last semester, Ilan and I criticized the school's focus on race-based segregation. I wrote about that evening here. I suggested that the college not turn over the race information of its students to groups like CLSA, OBSA, or APAM and that we, like we do for dry week, have a cool off period where freshmen go about and join whatever groups they want to join.

One of the founders of the organization, Chris Lopez CMC '08, is a good friend of mine.

Here is what he has written in:

Just wanted to write you a quick note and say hi. Its been a while since i've been back but hopefully will be back on campus around the 14th for the Cabrones Founding Anniversary. I just read an article you wrote in April in regards to self segregation. I find it interesting that the Cabrones member you spoke with wasn't clear on your stance. I actually find your argument to be comlpetely true, as a founding member I can tell you that one of our main goals was to combat exactly that which you write about. We were uncomfortable being put into a box before we even stepped on campus. Our organization is open to all people, while our it may appear that due to names, nicknames, practices, that we are a Mexican American group. The reality is that a large if not the majority of our members are not of Mexican or even Latin American heritage. Actually one of last years leaders was white and I believe one of the leaders this year is African American, I am not sure if that is public or even member level knowledge yet. So to say that as a cultural group we were self segregating, the basis of the founding of the group would be voided. As I am sure you know our group has hetero as well as homosexual members, black, white, asian, puerto rican, colombian, mexican, irish, bahamanian and every mix you can imagine. Joe Ye was Chinese American, Alexander Uballez was Chinese American, Gregory Hall and Scott Arnold were obviously not Latino, myself, I am a mixed or biracial individual who has always been atuned to the social awareness of race. I grew up in a town where I was neither white, nor brown, enough to be accepted fully by either group of my peers. This was my motivation for the founding of this group.

So do not take this in any way as a disagreement with your article. I would simply like to point out that often the group which I helped found is put into a box and judged, labeled, and categorized before being analyzed. As you said we don't get any information from any other source than word of mouth. Thank you for always giving us fair and equal representation.

Your Friend,

Chris

Debate Topics for the Forum

The Forum has asked for some potential debate topics for Monday September 28, 2009 debate.

Here are a few of my suggestions:

• Should we subsidize birth control on campus?
• Should computer science be a possible science G.E.?
• Does CMC have too much of a drinking culture?
• Should the President of ASCMC receive free room and board and his own special fund?
• Why don't CMCers date?

I'll have more later, but this is as good a start as any.

Poor Patrick! Heavy Lies the Crown of Campus Provocateur...

I'm pretty agnostic about the whole "Patrick versus Scripps" debate, but apparently it has garnered such a visceral reaction elsewhere that I would be remiss if I didn't weigh in. (I suspect the reason I warrant fewer comments nowadays is that much of the campus Left has concluded that I am beyond saving.)

On the one hand, I'd like to commend Patrick for writing about something that is -- for once -- campus related. I have to say though, it does strike me as a pretty irresponsible thing to write, for many of the reasons other people are bringing up, namely that it generalizes about Scripps women, without providing some kind of real analysis based on evidence. Critics are right to ask why it singles out Scripps women and not say, women generally at the Claremont Colleges. Not to mention the piece suffers from being severely overwritten, which, I guess is Patrick's style. Frankly, I find much of his writing unreadable, but then again, I'm not P.P.E., so what do I know about throwing around erudite diction?

Anyways, I should say thanks to Patrick for becoming one of the more hated men on campus, although I felt his non-apology apology was more than a little bit silly. A word to the wise: never try to reason with anonymous opponents. Just take the hit and move on. We live in a snarky, non-substantive culture, so whatever you say will have someone will just reply with sarcasm.

But, do refrain from swearing or threatening to fight people. It diminishes you.