The following is an opinion piece and does not reflect the views of the Tulane Hullabaloo

Tulane’s on-campus dining experience, to put it simply, has room for improvement. The planned new three-floor dining hall, set to replace Bruff Commons, represents an opportunity to address several areas that are lacking in Tulane’s current dining hall for students’ satisfaction, convenience and health.

The mealtime options currently available at Bruff are not bad, and often offer an enjoyable experience, but the fact of the matter is that those options are fairly limited. The options should be expanded to accommodate the wide geographical backgrounds of the Tulane community, who bring with them culinary preferences from around the nation and beyond.

As a basic example, Bruff’s main breakfast option consists of scrambled eggs, sausage, potato wedges or hash browns and biscuits. Nothing is necessarily wrong with the food itself, but most of the breakfast options are similar garden-variety North American standards, and even the best of them can become boring after a while. Increasing variety in meal options, not just at breakfast but at all times of day, would be a great start to improving students’ satisfaction with the dining hall’s offerings.

Aside from this, Bruff’s hours leave much to be desired. Closing earlier on weekends is understandable, but from a student’s perspective, this means that the main on-campus dining option becomes unavailable at later times on the days students are most likely to be up later. It would be appreciated and understandable if a compromise could be reached on this issue. The compromise must ensure the quality of weekend life for workers exists, while providing a realistic option for students to use the dining facility when there is demand. 

Finally, any changes made to the dining hall should include improvements to the nutrition of the food. While this is not as major of an issue as it once was, in part because of the increase in variety of healthy options that Bruff has offered over the last couple of years, more variety is still needed to ensure comprehensive healthy options. Further, Sodexo could stand to reduce the amount of grease and oil used in preparation of the food.

Overall, Bruff currently stands as a good dining option, but one that could use improvements. As Tulane looks to make major changes to the dining experience, Uptown Dining should take progressive steps to make the experience an improved one. 

Gabriel McBride is a freshman at Newcomb-Tulane College. He can be reached at [email protected]