Shannon Grinnan is the new director of the Dining Hall, also known colloquially as the Caf, which has many programs for hungry students and faculty. Grinnan has worked in the Dining Hall at EMU for six years, and she says that she is “humbled to have an opportunity to continue to serve the school in this way.” After working in food service at JMU, she took a position at EMU for the smaller size of the school and to spend more time with her family.
Grinnan’s job entails many tasks. She is the first manager on duty and serves as the point of contact between the school and her staff. She sets up catering for departments and summer camps and makes sure that basic maintenance is kept up. Grinnan also works with students with special dietary needs to ensure that everyone can eat safely and comfortably in the Dining Hall. She believes that students “should think of [the Dining Hall] as an extension of [their] home.” Her favorite part of her job is connecting with people and finding ways to make food more exciting.
In accordance with Grinnan’s belief in food accessibility, the Dining Hall offers “Green On-the-Go” boxes for people who do not have time to sit and enjoy a meal inside. The program uses sustainable, reusable to-go boxes that people can fill with food from the Dining Hall to take out with them. To join this program, a person must give a one-time 5-dollar deposit, and they will receive a box. They can then bring their dirty box back to be washed. After returning the dirty box, people can either take a clean one to use immediately or take a card that can be traded for a clean box at a later time. When a person turns in their box without taking a new one for the final time, their 5-dollar deposit will be returned to them. Grinnan says the program is “trying to remove as many barriers to [accessing] food here as possible.”
Another program created for ease of access to food is Lion’s Share. Everyone with a full meal plan, which is required for first- and second-year students, has 100 dollars in Royal’s Cash, which can be used in the Dining Hall and Royals’ Den. Once that balance has been used up, it cannot be reloaded. Lion’s Share allows students to load additional money for both places, which is billed to their EMU account. For every 100 dollars purchased on Lion’s Share, customers receive an added 20 percent to their accounts. The Lion’s Share balance transfers between semesters, providing students and faculty with an easy and consistent way to eat without keeping debit cards or cash on them.
The Dining Hall also tries to create special moments with theme meals and monthly birthday cakes. Grinnan is excited for the local harvest meal, for which the Dining Hall creates a menu around local produce. She enjoys working with the Black Student Alliance to coordinate a menu for the Soul Food Café during Black History Month as well. Sometime in roughly the next year, Grinnan also hopes to bring some additions to the Royals’ Den, including two-liter sodas and allowing students to order full pizzas to go.
