The boycott of NEIU’s contracted food provider enacted by the Student Government Association’s Finance Committee Chair Paul Harris back on September 25, 2007, has ostensibly run its course. Harris was hoping to generate a galvanizing effect among the student body to push for changing something on campus. Whether there is a major change or not depends on what happens when Sodexho’s contract comes up for review at the end of this year.
“The students at large have been excluded from so many things for so many reasons,” Harris said. “This was a chance for us to bring the students back into the fray and create a political power for the elected people to get us back into the real business of student government.”
The boycott of Sodexho is now regarded as old news around campus, but so are the opinions about the quality of the food they provide. Complaints run the gamut from the ultra-greasy hamburgers they prepare to the nearly expired milk and prepared foods they sell. What might be fresh news for students, faculty and staff alike is what actually prompted the boycott.
Sodexho’s district manager Frank Cecil appeared before the SGA on September 13 to discuss the raising of prices and it seemed to all go downhill from there. Harris said, “He was disrespectful, condescending and, under the auspices of asking for input, came in and told us what was going to happen… I guess he felt the need to give us a lesson on elementary economics and inflation, which was probably the most condescending part of it… It was more than just the fifteen senators sitting there that felt disrespected.”
People wonder why Sodexho would raise their prices when the company reported 2007’s annual income as somewhere in the neighborhood of $6.7 billion dollars. Apparently this was exactly the reason for jacking up the prices. At the meeting, Cecil justified the raising of prices, which were not “across the board” price increases but just applied to selected items, by reminding everyone “at the end of the day I need to break even.”
“Inflation is going to happen,” Cecil added. “For those of you that are familiar please go to the US Government website. Currently the consumer price index, or inflation, is rising at 3.4 percent per [year] for food and beverages outside the home.”
Frank Cecil is no longer serving as district manager for our school and the surrounding area. When asked to comment on the boycott and Harris’ recounting of his September 13 presentation that prompted it, Cecil would only say, “I do not agree with (Harris’) comments.” For any further comments, he referred The Independent to Dr. Melvin Terrell, Vice President of Student Affairs. Dr. Terrell refused to comment for this story.