Loomis Chaffee has experienced a big change regarding the dining service in the last year. Our conversion into Flik Dining Service caused some controversy in the overall satisfaction and such compared to the one from last year. In our community, we hear some students complaining about the dining service: lack of variety, unfresh ingredients, or lack options for international students or vegetarians. The reasons for these complaints may be different, as it can either be the service provider itself or the lack of space to properly cook or serve.

The change into a different service provider has also been a question suggested by many members of our community. Did we have much dissatisfaction for the last few years about our food? It is possible that there may have been some criticisms, but now that we have gotten a new service, there are some hindsight bias that exists. Hindsight bias is an effect where people tend to have different opinions after a change or an event takes place. After a change in our service, it is plausible that we may have a higher or lower satisfaction rate about the service we had before.

To test the hypothesis that our community has a different opinion on our dining service, a survey was conducted to a random sample of students and faculties. The sample was taken for new and returning students and the same for the faculties. The result was surprising. Compared to how much students hear complaints everyday about the new dining service, it turned out that there is actually not much of a difference in satisfaction.

Though the result shows that there is not much of a significant change in the dining service, this did not mean that we are completely satisfied with the service.

Written by: Monica Kim ’19 (Web Staff Writer)