The second Truman Experience Weekend took place last weekend, Nov. 1-2. Numerous high school students from around the midwest visited Truman State University. They toured the campus, watched sporting events and ate in the dining halls. When asked how Sodexo prepared for the influx of people, John Stewart, director of Truman dining services, said it was just another day.
Stewart expected about 600 extra people to be on campus last weekend. He also said preparing for the Truman Experience requires nothing out of the ordinary.
“Obviously, once we know what a count is going to look like each time we have visitors on campus… all we do is adjust our numbers to accommodate,” Stewart said. “But outside of that… it’s just business.”
Stewart also said Missouri Hall would be open Saturday to serve any extra people, and Sodexo was flexible about adjusting their numbers.
David Nilson, Sodexo operations manager, says they already have a plan in place for the weekend.
“For each dining hall, the production managers plan out the following week how many entries they’re going to serve,” Nilson said. “With that, each recipe then gets broken down to how much meat they’re going to need; how much produce they’re going to need… [the process] has already been underway.”
When asked about last semester’s Truman Experience Weekend, Nilson and Stewart both said serving the high school students went well. Stewart said the extra people didn’t affect service at all, and Nilson said everyone seemed to enjoy many aspects of the Truman experience, including the food.
Sodexo didn’t change anything about their process in preparation for the Nov. 1-2 weekend. Stewart said this was because everything went so well last year. Nilson concurred, though both of them noted the food trucks that arrived on campus Friday, Nov. 1 could have affected how resources were allocated.
“It’s kind of a fun experience, in a sense that [the visiting students will] have the option… to either go to the food trucks or the dining halls,” Stewart said. “In that case, it makes it a little hard to judge the food content, because you don’t know for sure where people are gonna eat. But…we’ll make sure we don’t run out.”