We know that the Michel Student Center didn’t fail the Peoria City/County Health Department inspection.
The facility is clean, and it’s more than safe to eat there.
But if the Student Center food serving areas scored below an acceptable level for four times in a row, something is obviously not working.
If the academic buildings had faulty projectors or bad whiteboards, we’d change them.
If the science labs had expired chemicals or broken equipment, we’d replace them.
If the basketball team had ripped uniforms, we’d buy new ones.
We saw that the rest of Bradley’s dining facilities scored remarkably well, and that they’re held to a very high standard for us as students. And we appreciate that more than we can verbalize.
So why isn’t the Student Center being managed in the same way?
The health department official report had some of the most ludicrously simple infractions, like not labeling toxic spray materials and leaving containers and lids on the floor.
And overall it wasn’t that major health violations were being committed; it was simply that little things kept adding up and ultimately left us with a score of 77.
The score was later remedied with another inspection, where the Student Center scored an 88, but that’s still the lowest score on campus.
Couldn’t those little things be easily fixed in the first place? Wouldn’t it have been easier to deal with the problems when they came up rather than go through the hassle of resolving an unsatisfactory situation?
Or, from the point of view as a student, how much procrastination is too much procrastination? Where is that line drawn?
And honestly, we at The Scout can’t help but see the parallels between the Student Center health inspection score and the Activities Council of Bradley University (ACBU) concert fiasco.
After the performer Ke$ha canceled the April show here at Bradley, ACBU scrambled to poll students on potential performers, extend offers and unfortunately was denied. Now, the organization plans to host two smaller performers.
We appreciate the effort that you’re putting in to bring us a fun concert, ACBU, but you’re running out of time. It needs to be resolved or it’s never going to happen.
Just like with the Student Center, enough is enough.
True, there are some discrepancies between the two events: the Student Center employees shouldn’t have made those infractions in the first place, and ACBU couldn’t really control the situation.
But now we’re just ready to see some changes. We’re ready to see someone stand up and say, “This isn’t going to happen again, and here’s why.”
And we need to see some accountability, in both of these cases, instead of listening to people consistently pass the buck.
Neither of these situations is fair to the student body, and politely ignoring the situations means they’ll go unresolved, or worse, they’ll be forgotten.
We shouldn’t have to pay for things that we don’t get, like concerts.
And we shouldn’t have to pay for things that we don’t want, like spoiled food.
