To:

Robert Jones, Chancellor

Danita Brown Young, Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs

Alma R. Sealine, University Housing Director

University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign

As concerned parents, we would like to bring your attention to an urgent issue regarding the general lack of access to good quality and nutritious meals to our students at the various dining halls on the campus. We understand that our students have already made a number of individual complaints without much avail. Below we are highlighting a few of these issues being encountered by our students:

1) Rice, pasta and noodles provided at various dining halls including ISR and PAR are grossly undercooked repeatedly.

2) Although the variety of food at ISR, specifically, the [Fusion 48] counter is better than the others, there is normally a very long queue. Similarly, PAR(stir fry counter) and Ikenberry dining hall also have extremely long queues leading to students missing meals several times a week or resorting to buying food from outside campus restaurants. This is further aggravated due to the closure of the FAR dining hall.

3) Breakfast options across all dining halls are poor. Students complain of eggs being mostly inedible and meat overly salty. Students have complained about moldy bread and bagels. Fresh fruit options are limited if any are available at all (largely canned fruits).

4) Vegetarian and vegan options across all dining halls are very limited.

5) There are no dining options after 8pm. Students who have late classes or activities struggle to find a place to eat dinner. In addition, many food items run out frequently when students do not go early enough. Therefore, we request for at least one to be open till 9pm.

General quality and taste of food at dining halls have been poor. Quality of food across dining halls needs to improve and be consistent.

The health and well-being of our students is our number one priority, and so is for the University as well. Simply put we would like all students to have access to good quality & healthy food with reasonable variety across all preferences i.e. vegan, vegetarian, etc. and across the campus at all reasonable times.

We as parents request the university leadership to urgently look into the matter and take swift action.