An employee serves Chicken Marsala to students in the Sean Hogan Dining Hall.
By Kayla Casavant | The Duquesne Duke
A petition started by a Duquesne student that is calling for the Rev. Sean Hogan Dining Hall to offer more “healthy, satisfying options” has received almost 200 signatures.
Sophomore Nina Ringelman, the petition’s founder, started it on Change.org at the end of August.
“It is very difficult to find truly healthy options at Towers Dining Hall,” Ringleman said. “When I arrived at school this year, I was very upset to have learned that hard boiled eggs were no longer being offered at Towers on a daily basis, and omelets were not an option at lunch either.”
According to the text of the petition, Ringelman and her supporters want eggs and grilled chicken to be daily options for students.
“I feel motivated to make a change, not only for myself now, but for all the other students that feel just as passionately,” Ringelman said.
The petition is addressed to Carlos Soza, general manager of resident dining at Duquesne. In response to the petition, Soza told The Duke, “We offer some of the freshest, healthiest options of any campus dining program.”
Soza said the reduction in egg dishes was a direct result of an outbreak of avian flu in June that led to the deaths of 50 million chickens.
However, Ringleman claims that she has spoken to friends at Robert Morris University, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, “none of which were experiencing any cut-backs in their dining hall in regards to eggs or chicken.”
According to Soza, Parkhurst Dining and the university define healthy dining as “more than just grilled chicken.”
“The Hogan Dining Center has a top-quality, fresh healthy salad bar, deli, soups, pizza and one of the highest quality, more unique vegetarian stations available anywhere,” Soza said.
Duquesne’s dining options are ranked 69th in the country on The Daily Meal’s Top 75 Best Colleges for Food in America list. This is the first year Duquesne has made the list, which calls attention to the university’s FarmSource initiative. The initiative brings food from local farms into dining facilities.
The article also references Duquesne’s expanded vegan and vegetarian options.
As of Thursday, the petition is only seven shy of 200 signatures.
