As a new semester starts, students must again adjust to eating food prepared en masse by Sodexho after experiencing a solid month of home-cooked meals. But as campus wakes from its winter break hibernation, residents have been voicing concern about the service at their community eateries, and wondering how the dining establishment makes its decisions.

Student complaints have ranged from early closing hours on weekends to the complete closing of certain dining halls during holiday weekends.

In a survey conducted by Pipe Dream, 69 percent surveyed said they felt the dining halls left open during holiday weekends were unable to meet the demands of residents of several different halls.

“They shouldn’t just keep Dickinson open; it’s crowded,” said Junior philosophy politics and law major Frank Rizzo. “I feel like a lot of people don’t want to walk and it’s not as nice as [College-in-the-Woods].”

But according to Bob Griffin, marketing director for Sodexho, some dining halls are closed during these weekends because there just are not enough students remaining on campus to justify keeping them open.

“If the customers are not using the building, it doesn’t make sense to keep them open,” he said. “When we’ve tried doing so in the past we’ve had 20 people for dinner. It doesn’t make sense to keep 15 people on staff for that.”

Griffin added that Sodexho carefully weighs the options before closing a dining hall.

“It isn’t an arbitrary decision,” he said. “CIW or Dickinson usually opens first because of the larger populations that use the facility. [Appalachin Collegiate Center] is by far the least used for lunch as is Newing, which is why they generally close first.”

In the same survey, 96 percent said they found the earlier closing times in dining halls and the lack of Nite Owls on weekends to be an inconvenience.

Griffin said the number of hours dining halls remain open directly depend on the board rate on-campus residents pay. Any increase in the dining hall operating hours would cause an increase in the board rate.

According to him, issues such as the board rate and operating hours are decided upon by the Dining Services Contract Committee, which is a group composed of students, faculty and staff.

“When people submit proposals to change the hours, they run the numbers and the committee votes and decides if there should be an increase in the board rate. If students want to keep it open they’ll have to raise it,” he said. “We’re happy to entertain any of those proposals at any time.”

The average room and board rate for a BU student is currently listed as $8,540.

Several students also complained about inadequate staffing in the dining halls, notably at the Appalachian Cafe.

“Since the beginning of November there has been no cook in the Appalachian grill and it’s been killing us softly,” said freshman economics major Dave Bollatin.

Griffin, however, countered that he had received only one complaint on the subject months ago, and that he thought that the situation had been resolved.

“These students may be remembering problems we experienced last semester with staffing in that area,” he said. “We opened with a full staff this semester and have actually had extra people up there on staff this week.”

Regardless, Griffin encourages students to contact him or Sodexho with any problems they have experienced in the dining hall.

“If anyone else has any complaints they need to come to me. We pride ourselves on trying to be responsive and I’ve never managed to solve a problem I didn’t know about,” he said. “The more information the students give us, the more we can help them.”