The OU Experience: Day 9, 10, 11, 12

Hey guys, sorry for the delay in posts! Nothing exciting was really going on until this week and I've been busy busy. But here is the updates from basically just this week.

Last Friday we really just finished up our project and hung out in the office. We also got to go to the union store and do some shopping. When I say some, I mean a LOT. There were fantastic sales and I am currently living in my OU sweater ($7 might I add!). If anyone wants anything from here just send me an e-mail, they literally have anything you can think of. Besides that we walked around a new part of campus and took a bunch of pictures so they're at the bottom.

The weekend didn't consist of anything really, we're waiting for another two weeks until we get our first pay check to go out and explore the town. We just hung out by the pool, went to the gym, and watched the Thunder play in Miami.

Day 10 on Monday we we're supposed to be in the front office and purchasing but we just ended up doing the one thing. So Jenn is in charge of the front office on the first floor where she deals mostly with student meal plans. So she explained how most parents don't really understand the system that they have here and I have to say it is a bit on the confusing side. They have Sooner Sense, Meal Points, and block plans. Sooner sense is basically like a debit card that you put money on and can pretty much purchase anything on campus. So if you wanted to buy a meal, clothes, etc. you can use the money on this and it carries on from year to year and won't expire which is great. Meal Points are essentially 'points' that are given to students and each point is equivalent to one dollar. This can be used at any location on campus (Couch restaurants, union food court, Cate's Centre, etc.), and the block plans or weekly meals are either x-amounts of meals for the total semester (not year) or x-amount of meals you can use per week (like 10, 12, etc.). She also was telling us all about the campus and mentioned some pretty hilarious rivalries that go on. Apparently the law and engineering students HATE each other and always are doing crazy ridiculous things to one another. I guess it started when the engineers set off a canon back in the early 1900's and it shattered all the windows in the law building and the feud has just been gathering momentum since. So the old law building had owl statues on the top corners of the roof and every year they would get painted green by the engineering students, then back to red by the law students and on and on. They also let loose a green pig in the law building one year and mice another. Hilarious! Plus, not to do with the rivalry thing, the engineers took over the OU website one year. Remember how I said the squirrels are everywhere? Well they blamed the 'squirrels' and said they had over taken the website! They changed meal plan info to nut stuff and the mascot picture and some other comical things. Very witty, I don't even think they got in trouble haha. But anyways, she offered to give us an official campus tour so we're going to set up a date to do that at some point as well as a tour of the greek buildings off campus which will be super interesting!

We didn't do too much else for the rest of the day. We had our first meeting with marketing but still haven't received some info about menu items from the Flying Cow yet so we basically just discussed everything that they would need from us and how they would be handling recreating the menu. We also decided on a roll out date in July for promoting fitter foods. Just a quick meeting and we'll be spending more time with them once we get the full menu completed. In the evening I had an awful headache so I just manly crawled up in bed and didn't do too much.

Day 11 on Tuesday was probably my second favorite so far! We got to travel to OU's Biological Station right (literally) on the border of Texas! It's about an hour away from Dallas on the outskirts of Ardmore. So we drove up with Frank who has been with the university for almost 30 years and is the newly appointed director of housing and food service. So from the Norman campus it was about a two hour drive but we got to chat about Oklahoma and the Bio station on our way up. Plus I got to observe a lot of the landscape which I have to admit was quite plain and flat, not that I was surprised lol. There were some 'mountains' that we went through that were actually quite beautiful, but it's nothing like at home where there are forests surrounding you essentially everywhere. You're lucky if you get to see more then 3 trees clumped together. There are some areas closer to water sources which are lush and beautiful, like really gorgeous areas, but it's mostly fields with very few rolling hills. You'd be able to spot a tornado from almost anywhere which I don't know if thats a plus or not.. Most of the trees are either elm or oak so it's definitely interesting to see something different from home.

So once we got to the station we got to take a look around. The area is directly on Lake Texoma which has buoys across that middle that divide Texas and Oklahoma. The land for this campus was actually donated from alumni and is probably around 100 acres or so I'd say, maybe a little bit more. It is stunning. It reminds me so much of a military style camp in the building styles and interior design. Very homey and secluded. So the Bio station basically serves as a location for summer sessions of Zoology/Biology students to gain field work and hands on stuff. They go into the woods and fishing on the lake to collect specimens of any and everything you can think of. Apparently they have a two headed rattle snake some where on the campus but we didn't get to check it out. They have bunk bed style accommodations for those staying there and the caf is only open during the times the summer sessions are ongoing. Lots of pics!

We wondered around outside for a bit and there were a bunch of Canadian geese on the lawn. We could actually get pretty close and there were a bunch of babies! So cute, except for stepping in goose poop every two feet. We got to check out right by the water, some cotton trees which were so awesome, and the docks where they keep some of the boats they have. We then headed back inside and had some delicious lunch then hit the road. Once we got back we just headed home then went to the pool, hit the gym, and watched the Thunder game.

So today, Day 12, we got to spend some time in room and board, got to assist on an assessment of one of their food locations, visited administration, and met with Flying Cow.

Room and Board was with Danna, and she works with students and their parents as well to set them up with the work study program I mentioned before. They recently just added a meal plan option specifically for these students which has allowed them to open 80 new spots for more students. Since they typically eat prior to or during their shifts, they can decrease the amount of meals they supply the students creating more funds to increase work study students. It's amazing how much they really get to help out the students that go to their university that require financial aid.

Our assessment was actually really great and very eye opening. We got to work with Shawn who is the manager of Couch Express and Xcetera. She typically does these with Kevin who is the director over at the union food court where we did the assessment. So we were at Wendy's and they've been having some problems with that location. Usually a location will get an assessment once an academic year but Wendy's has had to have 4 in the past 8 months because its consistently not meeting standards. I have to say before hard, it may change your opinion about eating out. The manager there just has an "I don't care" attitude and hasn't taken any of what they've been telling him to fix which makes for an unsafe and disgusting environment there. So I got to team up with Shawn and we assessed the outer dining area, storage areas, etc. There was mold in the drink dispensers, no sanitizer in any of the holders, old food in the seating chairs, cob webs on the plants, and dust every where. I didn't even mention this was right after they opened for the day so half of it is really inexcusable. In the cash area there were week old fries under the cash, log in sheet wasn't dated, cords covered in dust, they left the cheese for burgers sitting out the entire hour and a half we were there, both of us almost fell because there was so much water by the sinks. There was a slice of raw bacon on the floor and other food everywhere. Evacuation notices weren't put up, the ice machine had dirt along the rims, and the ice scoop was literally less then two inches above a garbage. Just ew, and she said things haven't changed since they did the first assessment in September. So they're going to try and get it shut down for a few days and allow them to clean and make changes or else they won't reopen. Or they fire the manager, either or. But maaan did it ever make me not want to eat any where ever. Nasty.

For lunch I got to try Chick-fil-a for the first time and it was delicious! If y'all are ever in the states you should get their chicken strips. Soooo good. Post lunch we headed down to administration and spoke with Nancy. She takes care of setting meal plans up as well as making travel arrangements for both departments, a lot of financial work with numbers and spread sheets to make sure labor, payments to the bursar, and changes made to meal plans are good. She also does counts for employee meals where she figures out how many meals are purchased in one location compared to another. She's actually in the process of setting up a liquor license for concessions to have beer at the football games! Very cool.

Once we were done there, we met briefly with Curtis and Rhonda to discuss how our fitter foods menu was going. They're going to come up with a few options they think might work on the fitter foods menu as well as how they won't the roll out to go. That brought us to the end of our day! Tomorrow we're with payroll, reslife (we get to visit with the registered dietitians), and spend some time in a manager's meeting in the afternoon. Next week is our half way point (CRAZY!) and we get our midpoint evaluations. We also get to spend time in concessions (which means checking out the football stadium!!) and catering. Can't wait to keep it going!

Soon-to-be Garden

Outside the Union

Water towaaa

Still outside the Union

Beautiful path

Told ya they're everywhere ... how many can you count?
Ps. one layed down on its stomach like it was trying to cool off on the concrete, didn't get a pic but it made my day!