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College fights hard, but struggles to move the ball in the second half..
Find out how do the new dining options fair.
Sodexo is in, Aramark is out
Tribe stumbles to 34-9 loss
Vol. 104, Iss. 3 | Tuesday, September 2, 2014
The Flat Hat The Twice-Weekly Student Newspaper
of The College of William and Mary
Flathatnews.com | Follow us:
Dining
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Selecting Sodexo Jack Powers Flat Hat ASSOC. Sports Editor
Sodexo USA became the College of William and Mary’s new dining services provider July 1 under a 10-year contract. To better understand the context of the administration’s selection of Sodexo and its significance for the future of campus dining, The Flat Hat requested official documents and emails related to the decision using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). While students first learned of the College’s intent to award a new dining services contract from Vice President of Administration Anna B. Martin’s email announcement Feb. 4, the evaluation process began more than six months earlier. Among three bidders, the administration ultimately chose Sodexo, which at the time was facing protests for one of its laborcompensation policies.
Chosen amid controversy In August 2013, Sodexo changed its definition of a full-time worker, to whom the company would need to provide health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. The change classified full-time workers as employees who worked an average of 30 hours per week over a 52-week period and redefined thousands of college dining workers as part-time labor if they did not work during the summer sessions and other breaks, thus denying them company healthcare benefits. In March, one month after Martin announced the College’s selection of Sodexo and three months before Sodexo revised the controversial labor practice, members of the organization Living Wages at the University of Virginia protested the school’s consideration of Sodexo, citing claims that the company deprived low-wage employees of healthcare benefits, as reported in The Cavalier Daily. An April 3 article by the newspaper reported that Patrick Hogan, the University of Virginia’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, announced that Sodexo was not officially under consideration as the university’s new dining services provider because the company never submitted a bid for the contract. Sodexo revised the controversial policy in June after protests at the University of Virginia, the University of Vermont, and other colleges and universities. However, the protests were not cited as the cause for the revision. According to a June 27 article in
The Wall Street Journal, Sodexo also announced “it will provide a credit to employees who work at seasonal locations such as universities. So if such workers log an average of 30 hours when school is in session, they will be credited with similar hours for the weeks when school is closed, for the purpose of classification.” Though the labor policies have since changed, the manual given to new College Sodexo employees in May contained the protested labor practices. The benefits section of the document reads, in part, “Employees who are classified as full-time status are eligible for the following benefits. To be considered full-time, an employee must work an average of 30 hours per week for each 52 week measurement period from October to October.” During the fiscal year 2012-13, 73 percent of non-student campus dining workers at the College were listed as full-time under Aramark, the College’s previous dining provider. Many of these employees could have been reclassified as part-time under Sodexo because of the long breaks inherent in college dining. These labor practices were in place when the College announced its intent to award the dining contract to Sodexo, though Sodexo changed these policies after the contract was signed. Sodexo’s definition of a full-time worker was not specifically mentioned in any of the hundreds of email correspondences or pages of official documents obtained by The Flat Hat in relation to the decision. “This was not an area that was considered or scored as part of the procurement process. The College is not involved with how Sodexo, or any contracted service, interprets and responds to federal laws. However, the College did require that Sodexo hire hourly employees, who wanted to transition to Sodexo from Aramark, into a similar position and honor their accrued seniority for benefits and pay,” Director of Auxiliary Services Cindy Glavas, a member of the Dining Services Committee who made the eventual decision, said in an email last week. One of the questions in the College’s follow-up to Sodexo’s proposal references a drop in labor costs under the company’s projections. The College asked Sodexo’s representatives to clarify if their projected $1.48 million reduction in labor between last year and their first year of operation would affect the quality
Dining
of services. In its answer, Sodexo did not describe where these reductions were coming from. “It starts with leading by example,” Sodexo’s answer reads, in part. “Sodexo’s on-site leadership team is on the floor during peak hours working to motivate and inspire team excellence and to promote individual accountability. It is crucial that hourly employees understand the new vision for dining services and the role they play in bringing that very different vision to life. From day one, our operations team will provide each employee clear and definite expectations for service excellence. Each day, the resident district manager, executive chef, and members of the operations teams will conduct daily huddles with the hourly employees at each venue. These huddles occur at each service station and ensure the team is engaged and understands specials, promotions, menu enhancements, and service delivery expectations. Finally, employees will receive more than a 1,000 hours of training to help them enhance their skill sets and deliver outstanding customer expectations.” While The Flat Hat could not determine the original labor costs that are being reduced under Sodexo according to the proposal, the total labor projected for year one on the proforma was $5,911,000. In October 2013, Timothy Donovan, chancellor of Vermont State Colleges, told Sodexo that the company could not implement the full-time worker definition changes, citing the organization’s original contract with the company. The official contract between the College of William and Mary and Sodexo, signed May 6, two and a half months before Sodexo reversed its definition of a full-time worker, and less than a month before it took over operations, does not feature any provisions for Sodexo’s responsibility toward its workers after they’ve been hired. Sodexo announced the relaxation of its definition of full-time worker June 24, which the company said was part of a standard review of company policy. At the time of the change, frequent protests at campuses across the country and calls for unionization among cafeteria workers were occurring. See SODEXO page 3
CAROL PENG / THE FLAT HAT
The Flat Hat recounts the College’s vendor decision process, outlines proposals
Student Life
Tribe Square incorporated in meal plan Title IX brings changes Administrators explain decision to allow Dining Dollar use in Pita Pit, MOOYAH
College updates sexual assault policies
Aine Cain Flat Hat News EDITOR
Sarah Caspari Flat Hat Chief Staff Writer
The Tribe Square restaurants have been included on the meal plan as of July 1, following negotiations between owners, College of William and Mary administrators and the school’s new dining services provider, Sodexo USA. Last year, MOOYAH, Pita Pit, the Crust and Subway (which has since closed), complained that the College’s mandatory on-campus meal plan hurt their businesses. Vice President for Administration Anna B. Martin disagreed and said that a combination of circumstances led to last year’s decreased revenues. She explained that it was impossible to add the eateries to the meal plan in January at the beginning of a semester that saw the College choosing between renewing a contract with Aramark or selecting Sodexo instead. “What happed was that in the process of going through the RFP [request for proposal], the proposers [Aramark and Sodexo] were
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then told that we’d want them to take the Tribe Square tenants and put them under their umbrella as subcontractors,” Martin said. “When the contract was then awarded to Sodexo, they began working with those four tenants so that this could be initiated July 1 when they took over. If Aramark had still been the provider, on July 1 [the Tribe Square proprietors] would have been under the umbrella of Aramark as subcontractors. Had it been in the fifth year of a Martin ten year contract, we’d have approached it in a different way, but if you’re in a position when the RFPs have gone out, the proposals have come in, it just makes more sense to say, ‘we can do this but we have to do this in a more logical way.’ We’ll make it available to you in July.” Associate Vice President of University Relations Brian Whitson noted that the
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negotiations needed to happen between Tribe Square and the College’s dining service provider, not the College itself. “This was always an agreement that needed to be reached directly between … the university’s independently contracted dining services provider (Sodexo as of July 1) and the owners of the Tribe Square businesses,” Whitson said in an email. “We were delighted to help facilitate those talks between both sides and think this will be a positive step for everyone involved.” Pita Pit owner Kim Twine expressed her gratitude for the increased communication between the Tribe Square owners, Sodexo and the school administration. She noted that College President Taylor Reveley gave the Tribe Square proprietors an “open door policy” to contact him if they have any issues in the future. However, she explained that other local vendors have slim chance of ending up on the meal plan, going forward.
To comply with Title IX regulations regarding schools’ procedures for dealing with sexual assault and harassment, the College of William and Mary has updated its policy on discrimination, harassment and retaliation. The new policy gives details on reporting cases of sexual harassment, as well as how employees of the College must handle them. One stipulation of the policy is that any case of sexual harassment reported to a College employee involving a student must be referred to the Office of Compliance and Policy and the Dean of Students’ Office. “What we now have is greater clarity from [the] Office of Civil Rights in [the] Department of Education,” Director of Compliance and Title IX Coordinator Kiersten Boyce said. “If [employees] have any kind of role in the conduct process, any role in enforcing conduct rules, then they’re considered responsible employees. That means that if they become aware of sexual assault, then the institution becomes aware of sexual assault and we have an obligation to respond. … That means that an anonymous report, once they’re aware of it, they’ve got to pass it on.” In the investigation that ensues, however, it may be impossible
See TRIBE SQUARE page 3
See POLICY page 3
Inside VARIETY
Inside opinions
Sororities are bumpin’
The rush tactic of bumping is as superficial as a Tinder relationship. page 4 Clear High 100, Low 73
MKTO fails to impress campus The pop duo make some noise at Lake Matoka Amphitheater. page 5