Future Dining at Chestnut

Bowl and Two speech bubbles

Future Dining at Chestnut: Cultivating Reciprocity at Chestnut Dining Hall

The Innovation Hub has partnered with Food Services at Chestnut Residence to consult directly with students about their dining hall experiences. Through this project, the Innovation Hub facilitated opportunities for dialogue with the student Residence community to build an ongoing partnership for future change. 

Fall/Winter 2021-2023

How can we improve student dining experiences?

Food Services approached the Innovation Hub in the fall of 2021 seeking support to design impactful student consultation and co-design for the future of Food Services operations at Chestnut. To learn more about the ongoing student needs at Chestnut, we conducted a series of student-led feedback sessions and interviews. After collecting and analyzing feedback, we developed a report designed to aid in planning collaborative community dialogue events at Chestnut in fall 2022. These fall events utilized a co-creation approach to facilitate opportunities for Chestnut residents and Food Services to collectively imagine the future of Chestnut dining.

KEY FINDINGS

The future of dining at Chestnut Residence is built on reciprocity between students and staff

We found that the staff and students at Chestnut are committed to improvement and wish for their needs to be respected. There is great potential for a mutually beneficial relationship between both parties. Our findings play out in five themes:
  1. The Power of Choice
  2. The Capacity to Act
  3. Security Enables Respect
  4. Making Memories Together
  5. Everyone Belongs

From our co-creation events, we learned that students are keen to help make the dining hall space inclusive to the needs of all students and to reflect the diversity that already exists in the student body. Fostering the relationship can give both staff and students a greater sense of belonging at Chestnut, where both parties feel acknowledged and respected by each other.

Chestnut Dining Theme Visual of a table with plates