by b.s
The University of Vermont announced via small-plane-with-banner-attached-to-back this past Wednesday, September 23rd, that they would not be doing anything to address the concerns of students regarding the current status of UVM Dining. The banner read, “fuck you,” a carefully chosen phrase, long deliberated by UVM’s PR department on how best to tell dining hall staff and students that their complaints are heard.
The announcement comes following a recent outcry from students in an ENVS 001 class. Students accosted new Office of Sustainability director, Ellen “woman” Palchak, who has been working at UVM for a whopping six weeks. Students brought to light the incredible amount of waste being produced within each dining hall; citing plastic utensils, plastic cups, paper plates and bowls as well as single use chairs and tables. Palchak responded with grace, reminding students that dining halls are doing their best, but UVM’s young environmentalists were wildly unsatisfied with this response.
In an interview held after the class, a young woman approached me and asked to express her frustration. She reached into her bag and pulled out two plastic Poland Spring water bottles, poured them in her hydro flask, and put the empty bottles in the trash. She began, “It’s honestly like really fucked up that UVM is putting so much in the trash you know? Like, yesterday I saw someone putting syringes in this orange container outside the hospital and it was like, why are they doing that? Like, single use is so fucked up.”
This voice speaks loudly as one of so many young Al Gores who committed to UVM for its green reputation, but were sorely disappointed upon arriving at school. Students have begun to boycott the dining halls due to their high waste production and instead shop at Cat Pause and the Marche for grab-and-go meals. The grab and go is a better alternative to eating in the dining hall because all of the food is wrapped in single use plastic, which is meant to be thrown away, whereas plates are not. Students also burned down the Harris-Millis dining hall, colloquially known as “The Grundle”.
One might wonder to themselves why UVM—a school nationally regarded as the most racially diverse, inclusive, and environmentally conscious school in the country—is using non-reusable dining supplies. The recent shift towards disposable items comes alongside, or rather as a result of, a massive staffing shortage in the dining halls. Between the end of the spring term of 2021 and the beginning of fall term of the same year the UVM Dining staff went from 150 employees to 2.
The number of dining employees decreased 75-fold due to myriad reasons. The first requires background. In an effort to stimulate the economy, the Biden administration has funded two construction projects on the UVM campus. The former is the addition of four 18-foot tall hospital rooms, while the latter is the addition of a 20,000 person capacity bathroom on the Patrick Gym. When students left for the summer, the union-workers constructing these two projects also decided to take the summer off. UVM needed both construction projects completed by the beginning of the 2021-2022 school year, however. UVM President Suresh Garimella informed dining staff on May 20th that they were to resume construction in the absence of the union-workers.
On May 21st fifty-four dining hall staff died in a jack hammer incident. The remaining ninety-six staff went on strike soon after. The strike was brought on because, like the coal miners of West Virginia, the dining hall staff were only being paid in redeemable vouchers, called “Cat Scrip.” The Cat Scrip aren’t redeemable over the summer because on-campus stores are closed, so an additional twenty-six staff starved to death during the protests. The final sixty-eight dining hall staff decided to start an intentional community in northern Vermont. The only two staff returning to work in the fall were indentured servants who legally could not leave the property.
That brings the story back to now, late September 2021. There are no dining staff to wash dishes, hardly enough to make the food, and sixth-thousand on campus students who would rather die than work in a dining hall. The Cynic recently conducted a poorly written poll, asking students “What do you think is the best solution to the staffing shortage currently affecting UVM Dining?”, with the response options being YES, NO, or UNSURE. Of the near four-hundred respondents, 78% voted YES, while 18% voted NO, and the remaining 4% UNSURE. This data suggests that The Cynic is fucking stupid, but it also suggests the same of the UVM student body.
Vermont’s Universal Recycling Act, introduced in 2012 enacted strict laws about waste reduction in Vermont, including: XIV. all restaurant managers who allow for food scraps to go in the garbage rather than compost are required to eat the food scraps out of the garbage; X. companies producing more than four standard-moose-mass (SMM) of recycling are required to put the recycling in the Winooski river themselves, rather than depend on third-party waste services; XII. food distributors are required to post vague certifications on their websites, such as “Certified B,” and not give any more information as to what that certification means.
Between complications with the above legal jargon, new administration in the Office of Sustainability, too many students volunteering to help in the kitchen, massive staffing casualties, and rampant single-use items on campus, UVM is in for a difficult year. Many students and administrators find themselves asking, “What would Ethan and Ira Allen do?” Ethan and Ira would probably slaughter and enslave the Abenanki people living near Lake Champlain, clearing the land that would then be used to birth the eugenics movement, going on to inspire famous German artist, Adolf Hitler. Probably.
This story is developing. For any tips please email president@uvm.edu.
Categories: front page, samantha stillman, sept. 28, vol 25