Hello President Fry,
Drexel Dining Centre is a facility that all the students of this prestigious university use at least twice every day, either during breakfast, lunch or dinner. All members of the university community spent sometimes in the centre as they take their meals. However, overcrowding has been the recent order in the facility.
With the increase in the number of students enrolling into the school programmes, the space in the dining Centre has been greatly overpopulated during meal times. Crowding is characterised by the large queues in the Centre and standing students during eating time.
The tiny hall houses six areas where the students get served with their meals. The small space does not only limit the variety of the meals offered in the facility, but also forces students to take their meals while standing due to limited sitting area.
The Centre, therefore, need to be developed to allow for all students to sit as they take their meals and also ample space for serving of meals. The current situation in the Centre makes it unattractive to students and they even choose to go and have their meals in other places outside the University.
If extended to allow for conducive dining space for all the students, the Centre will not only receive more customers but even prospective students will choose to join the institution. I believe that the expansion of dining Centre of this University is a strategic and wise investment of finances as the benefits are long term and imminent.
For further discussions on this proposal, please contact me through my email at -----------------------
Thank you for your time and consideration.
A Plan to Expand Drexel University Dining Centre
Biological Sciences
- Executive summary
This proposal indicates that there is a problem of crowding in the dining Centre of Drexel University, and the small size of the Centre is limiting service to the students during meal time. The Centre’s capacity is less than half the number of students in the institution and thus the long queues observed during lunch and dinner hours.
The students have adopted poor eating habits in a bid to avoid the congestion in the Centre as they purchase food from fast food outlets and vending machines. This plan explains three options that the school administration can take to solve the overcrowding in the Centre. The options are; to expand the existing Centre, to build a new Centre or to do nothing about it. The expected population growth in the university in the near future means a solution is needed soonest.
- Core proposal
- Problem statement
Good eating habits is necessary for proper development of youth both physically and socially. It is essential to instil eating discipline among the youth mostly those in college level to aid their development and also their health.
Bad eating habit is a health concern amongst youth who made the transition to the university life where they are prone to stress and limited time (Ganasegeran et al.). Lack of suitable conditions in the Dining Centre of Drexel University for students to have their meals in a healthy environment and a timely manner may induce the students into poor eating habits.
If the university does not support for a Dining Centre with good dining environment, students are temped to seek alternative sources of food.. Presence of mushrooming shopping malls, fast food shops and vending machines and lack of proper meal services in the school all contribute to students adopting unhealthy eating habits (Ganasegeran et al.). These factors have to be countered by provision of a wide variety of diets in the University Dining Centre and also creating ample space in the Centre to allow the students have meals comfortably an also without wasting time queuing.
There is a need to promote healthy feeding habits among the youth to have them have healthy eating discipline and therefore having all of them get the appropriate proportions of nutrients (Gan et al.). The Drexel University, therefore, has a responsibility to ensure that the students in the university are encouraged to take healthy diet. This can be achieved through creation of a favourable environment for the students to eat in the Dining Centre.
Congested Dining areas, long queues to the serving areas and lack of time are some of the reasons that make many students shy away from Drexel University Dining Centre. Solving these issues is important to ensure that the students are attracted to have their meals in the Centre and not buy fries from a fast food outlet.
With the school having strategic plans to increase the number of students from the current 23,500 to 34,000 students by 2021, it is a no-brainer that there is need to get a lasting solution to the already existing problem of congested dinning Centre. Investing in an expansion project of the facility is directly congruent with the vision of the University; continued Expansion to accommodate more students.
With the kind of infrastructure that the school has invested in for classes, laboratories and offices, the university has to get a solution to serve all the students in the Dining Centre. It must also allow them get a wide range of dishes to select from in the Centre.
- Options
There are various options that the university can select to use in addressing the problem of crowded dining centre, hence ensuring that the students are motivated to eat their meals in the Centre and not in purchasing their meals from vending machines and fast food outlets in and around the University.
- Option #1: Expand the existing building to create more space
The current Dining Centre can effectively serve only 10,000 students of the current 23,000 students in the institution. This means that the population of students in the university is more that than twice the capacity of the Centre. The management can decide to expand the existing Dining Centre to accommodate more students at one given time and also have them served more efficiently.
This option is the best if the university does not have enough money to commit to a project of building a new Centre. The cost of expanding the Centre would be much lower than that of building a new Centre.
Expanding on the existing Centre would also take lesser time to finish and have all the students accommodated. This would be the fastest solution for the university to accommodate the students and have them get seats as they take their meals and even get diversified meals on the menu.
This option however is not the best considering that there are other buildings and landscape considered when planning the University. Expanding the Centre may mean altering the layout of the institution and therefore making the organisation management decide against it.
- Option #2: Building a new Dining Centre
The University may decide to build a new Dining Centre from the scratch, meaning that more finances will need to be committed to the project. This project will cost way more than the expansion option, but it is a long-term investment for the university.
Better physical planning will be done to ensure that the new building will not in any way change how the University landscape appears. It will also ensure that the site chosen has enough room for future expansion plans.
The long-term viability of constructing a new dining Centre overshadows the fact that students currently in session at the university are still using this congested dining Centre. Building a new Centre means that there is no short-term solution to the problem, and probably none of the current students will benefit from the new Centre.
Another challenge that building a new dining Centre is the availability of finances for the project. For a major decision like increase in infrastructure in the university to materialise, there has to be a long chain of bureaucratic consultation before finance for such a project are committed. This may take years or even fail to materialise despite investing time and resources in the project.
Option #3: Doing nothing
The university may weigh the above options and decide not to have any of the options and let the status quo stand. This decision is informed by the current financial commitments of the institution, different priorities than building another high-cost infrastructure.
This decision will mean that the university will not incur any cost in trying to assemble a new Dining Centre. However, the small Centre will prove to be a liability in the long to the organisation, and prospective students who are undecided may choose not to join the University in the future.
Lack of action will also mean that the number of students who dine in the university Centre will continue dwindling as more students decides to buy food from vending machines and fast food outlets. This will eventually mean reduction in the prices each meal that is currently at ten dollars per meal to around half of that. This would mean that the profits obtained from the Centre will drastically reduce with time.
The poor eating habits that lack of proper facility will create in the students will have an adverse effect on the rest of their lives. Instigating a poor eating habit to the students would be going against one of the core principles of Drexel University. The university would be setting a national example in promoting poor eating habits for the American populace.
Recommendations
Various factors are examined before making a decision to either commit to a new project or not to. These factors include; availability of finances, the scale of preference and both short term and long-term implications of the decisions made (Kinicki and Williams). After critically analysing the various factors, the management then makes an informed decision on the steps to take (Schwarber).
Here the University has three options on the table to select from in bid to solve the crisis of congestion in the Dining Centre. One of the options is to expand the current dining Centre so that it can accommodate more students at a given time (Option#1). This decision if taken may alter the landscape of the University and also may be expensive in the short run when compared to Option#3 where the management decides to do nothing about the problem. The decision however is a good short term solution and cheaper to use while compared to the option#2 which is to build a new Centre from the scratch.
Expanding the university Dining Centre is the best option if there is insufficient funds to implement Option #2 to the completion and it is also a quick solution to overcrowding problem in the university. While Option#3 is not solving the problem as a step must be taken to alleviate the situation in the Dining Centre.
- Appendices
- Pre-proposal
Dining centre is one of the most important facility in an institution of higher learning as many of the students in the system do not have time to prepare their food. With efficient Dining Centre where a range of dishes are served and easily accessible for the students is essential to save time and also ensure better health of the students.
An organisation as big as Drexel University should have social amenities adored by the small universities in the United States and around the world. The university has been growing at a very fast rate such that its population now stands at 23,500 students currently. The problem is that despite development of other facilities to accommodate the rising number of students, the dining centre is yet to be changed. It still can hold only 10,000 students in one sitting and therefore there are long queues during meal times (Drexel University).
With the number of students in the school expected to rise to 30,470 by 2017 and increase further to 34,000 students in 2021, the dining facility must be developed to hold the high populace, expansion of the dining centre is a must. The problem can either be addressed by expanding the dining facility or building a new one from the scratch.
In a poll conducted among the students, sixty percent (60%) of the interviewed five thousand students believes that the Centre need expansion or a new one built. Forty percent (40%) thinks that the dining Centre is overcrowded and the meals served in the Centre is not worth the time one spends on queues and money that they use to buy it.
This proposal is to indicate that there is a problem in the dining Centre that need immediate action. The congestion and limited varieties of meals in the Centre are issues that need a solution for the welfare of students. The administration needs to decide whether to expand the existing Centre, build a new one or do nothing about it.
Works Cited
Gan, Wan Ying et al. 'Direct and Indirect Effects of Sociocultural Influences on Disordered Eating Among Malaysian Male and Female University Students. A Mediation Analysis of Psychological Distress'. Appetite 56.3 (2011): 778-783. Web.
Ganasegeran, Kurubaran et al. 'Social And Psychological Factors Affecting Eating Habits Among University Students In A Malaysian Medical School: A Cross-Sectional Study'. Nutr J 11.1 (2012): 48. Web.
Kinicki, Angelo, and Brian K Williams. Management. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2008. Print.
Schwarber, Patricia D. 'Leaders and the Decision-Making Process'. Management Decision 43.7/8 (2005): 1086-1092. Web.
"Continue to Grow Drexel's Enrollment." Drexel University Strategic Plan 2012-2017. Drexel University, n.d. Web. 06 June 2014.
<http://www.drexel.edu/strategicPlan/initiatives/enrollment/>
