Starting in March 2005 and continuing through the summer into September 2005, Housing and Dining Services combined to form one division at Carnegie Mellon. Tim Michael heads the new organizational unit. The combined Housing and Dining Office will offer many advantages over the original system.

Until this year, Housing Services and Dining Services had been separate offices at Carnegie Mellon. According to Tim Michael, director of the Office of Housing and Dining, even though they were two different offices, "students… often thought we were related offices because there is such a natural connection between the provision of 'food and shelter' on campus." The merger began in January 2004 when the supervisor of Dining Services left Carnegie Mellon. A committee supervised Dining Services until November 2004, when Tim Michael was asked to head Dining Services in addition to his position as Director of Housing Services at the time.

According to Michael, it was a natural progression to combine the two offices.

"I have prior food service experience from my work at another university, I had already been overseeing the operation of The Underground since it opened in 1999, and I had just assumed responsibility for Skibo Cafe, Andy's Eatery, and Zebra Lounge in September 2005 when the person supervising those units left CMU," explained Michael. "So the transition for the rest of dining operations into my area made sense."

The combined office will hopefully provide better services to students. With the official merger of the two offices in March 2005, the expertise of the housing staff was distributed across the entire unit of Housing and Dining, and there is only one contact point for both services now. According to Michael, the spreading of expertise and responsibility from Housing Services into Dining Services has produced positive results.

"The combined staff is really functioning at a greater level than just the sum of the two groups because there is a new excitement and creativity in sharing both these important support services for students," Michael said. "We have… streamlined many of the administrative processes so there is now one point of contact. We have also combined our technology support to create a new level of convenience for students related to their dining interactions."

At the moment, the Office of Housing and Dining Services has over 150 employees all working with new service standards, as was expressed in their August 2005 "rally" to start the year, and they will become more unified as time goes on. Currently, the office is devising combined training programs for its staff. Even though complete unification will take time, the combined office is nevertheless working toward the future, making physical and administrative improvements to student life at Carnegie Mellon.

When asked about current and future endeavors of the new office, Michael responded, "Several concrete changes have already occurred which we think has made the start to fall semester easier and more convenient for most students."

Michael highlighted the new housing and dining forms that are delivered to incoming freshman over the summer. There is now a combined application and all of the paper work comes at once and is sent back to only one office. The Office of Housing and Dining has also started a weekly newsletter about dining on campus and has moved the process for changing meal plans online. Housing and Dining Services has also created a special dining program that will serve restaurant-style meals to groups of meal plan holders, and it added Bento Bowl, a stir-fry station, to the University Center dining gallery. Michael also commented that a new Dining Advisory Committee (DAC) is being created with the help of the Student Dormitory Council and Student Body President Tom Sabram.

As Michael said, "Lots of stuff [is] happening!" For current information from the Office of Housing and Dining Services, read its weekly newsletter.

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