Dunkin’ Donuts will replace Frontera Fresco’s frozen yogurt station this spring, Norris University Center Executive Director Kelly Schaefer confirmed at Associated Student Government’s weekly Senate meeting Wednesday.
After receiving feedback from students and the Norris Center Advisory Board, administrators concluded Dunkin’ Donuts would be a positive addition to Norris.
“The endcap at Frontera was supposed to be a different kind of coffee location,” said Dr. Julie Payne-Kirchmeier, assistant vice president for student auxiliary services. “Students aren’t responding to it like we thought they would. People saw it as comparable to Starbucks, and that’s not what they wanted. They wanted something like Dunkin’.”
Multiple senators clapped and cheered at the Dunkin’ Donuts announcement. Schaefer also asked Senate for feedback about the Norris dining options added this year, including Subway and the new-look Starbucks.
Students offered numerous concerns with the updated dining options, including long wait lines at Subway during dinner hours and reduced late-night food options. ASG President Ani Ajith said he appreciated the effort administrators put in to implement student feedback.
“We’re constantly talking with them about different changes and giving input along the way,” Ajith, a Weinberg senior and former Daily staffer, told The Daily.
Schaefer said Norris is constantly aiming to update the food options, adding that administrators are collecting student opinions to best serve the community.
“We’ve done two national surveys,” Schaefer said. “We’ve done campus surveys. Variety, cost effectiveness and branding are the top three things students are asking for.”
Payne-Kirchmeier and SafeRide coordinator Bernard Foster also announced a new SafeRide mobile application, which was created in an attempt to eliminate long wait times with a more efficient tracking application.
Called TapRide, the new application aims to boost ridership, save money and yield more data in order to give the organization more statistical information. The application is currently in the troubleshooting phase and is expected to be fully running by February. Users will be able to set a pickup and drop-off location and indicate the number of passengers on a smartphone. The app will give the estimated time of arrival and will alert the passenger when the SafeRide has arrived.
“The big takeaway here are we want to make sure we’re honoring what the students have requested for us to do in previous Senate and continuing to move forward,” Payne-Kirchmeier said. “We want to be innovative. We want to be practical.”
Later, Senate discussed and voted on the new election commission for the spring presidential elections. Seven students were elected to the commission. Senators also voted to allocate $200 from the ASG Project Pool to the keynote speaker for Body Acceptance Week, Lisa Lee.
Specific changes to the ASG Code and a proposal to donate money to Mega Shabbat will be voted on next week.
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Twitter: @beccasavransky
