In our last issue, The Johnsonian published an article about a student who created a petition regarding problems she felt were present in the new dining services with Sodexo. The Johnsonian made an effort to write a follow up article with a more narrow perspective on Sodexo’s point of view, however we were unable to complete this article due to the lack of cooperation from Sodexo employees, specifically Bryan Harriss, general manager of dining services.
Bryan Harriss did not make time to meet in person with our news editor for almost two weeks after reaching out to him and visiting his office and reaching out to others in his office including Kevin Boyle, William Hofmann, and Tramaine Bell. She spoke in person to a Sodexo employee, Connor Lockett, who emailed Harriss as well, received no response, until she emailed Harriss again.
In his response, Harriss indicated that he would no longer partake in interviews with The Johnsonian Staff.
“At this time I have provided three interviews regarding the transition of the dining services program. Currently, I am not going to provide any additional statements around this subject matter,” Harriss said.
He followed up with short and vague responses to the news editor’s inquiries, with incomplete responses including “our dining services teams have been diligently working to have all campus dining operating at,” and vague responses such as “see number five.”
There were often times in his emailed response that he made it apparent he did not read the questions before they were answered. He often avoided answering questions and even answered a question that was not posed in the original email.
Despite a vague response and a refusal to answer more questions, Harriss claims that Sodexo is very communicative with the Winthrop community.
“We are in constant communication with the university, reviewing the feedback we receive and discussing potential changes needed based on student and university input,” Harriss said.
Sodexo has not been transparent enough during a time of transition when people are scrutinizing them more closely. They don’t seem to care enough about the student and faculty they are working for to answer questions and concerns that many people have. Although they have expressed that they are “aware of several areas of student concern and we will continue to address issues as they arise,” without providing further details on how they will achieve this. Sodexo needs to be more open with the Winthrop community about these issues in order to gain trust and a good reputation.
Contributors: Tea Franco, Anna Sharpe, Caroline Riggs
