When prospective students go on a college tour, they always ask the same questions. “How are the social events? What’s the academic rigor like? How is the food?” College life tends to center around the dining hall, and for good reason – students have to eat. Burwell, being the college’s main dining hall, recently had new life breathed into it, with new lighting and new photographs. But, what about the food?

Freshman Reid Schuster finds himself eating at Burwell seven to eight times a week. Still he admits that he tries to “avoid Burwell whenever possible, usually by going to Zach’s” or by eating off campus. Schuster shares a common love of Burwell breakfast, but would appreciate Burwell being open for a longer period of time, as well as “making sure any meat prepared is not excessively dry and tasteless.” Schuster also complains that the food in Burwell is repetitive and finds himself sick of it, and it’s only his first year on campus.

Sarah Peters, a sophomore, rarely finds herself even eating on campus. She eats frequently at Panera Bread or Moe’s, and she consistently supports downtown Spartanburg eateries like: Cribbs, Groucho’s Deli, Lime Leaf, Wild Wings, Wild Ace’s, Delany’s, Monsoon Noodle House and Miyako Sushi Group. When Peters does eat on campus, she eats at Phase V.

“I would like to see tastier food options and an accurate menu,” says Peters of her Burwell experience. “I would like fresher and healthier food options, and more choices.”

Peters says that over her two years at Wofford, the food has remained “sub-par.”

Senior Alex Dunlap says he rarely, if ever, eats in Burwell. Dunlap frequents Phase V and Zach’s on campus, and constantly finds himself eating off campus.

“I want better quality food, less salt and less grease. Eating campus food shouldn’t make me feel sick,” says Dunlap. “I’ve been to Burwell once my senior year, and it was still terrible. I wish they spent all the money they did redecorating it on buying us edible food.”

Over his years at Wofford, Dunlap has seen the food degrade in quality and is upset about the end of the traditional “wing night.”

You may have heard the recent buzz on campus following a petition to improve the dining options at Wofford.

Within a few days of Interim, the “Activism” class went from listening to a guest speaker talk about immigration reform to posting an official petition on the food at Wofford.

Junior Holten Fields describes the process: It was a very organic process. It started with a lobbyist who came in to talk to us about immigration reform. He started off talking about this and had a whole case study that he was going to show us, but then he said, almost off hand, ‘So what is something on campus that you would like to change?’

And, of course, the class was mostly football or basketball players, both girls and guys, and they all said the food in Burwell. Everyone chimed in and that is when he started writing it down. Everyone jumped on board. And he said, ‘You know what? Forget about the case study, let’s just talk about this and how to advance this cause.’ So that is where it started.

Before you knew it, a week and a half later we had a petition with 500 signatures. The petition was the result of everyone in the class. It was also thanks to our professors Dr. Laura Barbas Rhoden and Dr. Beate Brunow.

After three days, the petition had about 489 signatures. At that point, we were contacted by someone in the President’s office saying that Dr. Samhat wanted us to move forward and do something about the food on campus and encourage more student involvement in the process.

I always wanted to make a difference when it comes to committees on campus and making real change. So I got together with two others and actually met with the Executive Assistant to the President Amanda Gilman, Aramark Management, the college’s Vice President for Marketing Annie Mitchell, and Provost Dennis Wiseman.