The Fellows with the Hobart Center for Foodservice Sustainability have announced a $5,000 grant to Bates College Dining Services for its comprehensive approach to food service sustainability, and have named Director of Dining Services Christine Schwartz as an HCFS Fellow.

Bates was judged as having the best sustainability program from among 13 entrants nationwide, which included K-12 schools and higher educational institutions, health care and hospitality facilities.

“Every year the level of participation and interest in sharing sustainable practices continues to expand,” says Rick Cartwright, vice president, ITW Food Equipment Group, and HCFS Fellow. Cartwright said that “Bates College stood out as a best-practice example showing a broad level of impact across many aspects of sustainability.”

Prompted by a generous gift from an anonymous donor, the opening of a new dining facility and the passion on the part of students to know more about the foods they were eating, Bates College undertook a yearlong initiative to explore connections between the dining program, food and the educational mission of the college itself. “Nourishing Body and Mind: Bates Contemplates Food” was launched in September 2008. Overall, Bates College decreased energy consumption and water use, reduced solid waste, and implemented a Farm-to-Fork program, expanding the purchasing of local, sustainable foods. From these initiatives, Bates College realized an annual saving totaling more than $80,000.

“Bates, like many colleges, believes that the environment must be taken into consideration when purchasing, creating, delivering and serving food products. And our dining program has integrated environmental stewardship into every decision regarding dining and food services,” says Schwartz, who will help select future operations for grant recognition while serving as an HCFS Fellow. “We are committed to continuing to develop the Bates Contemplates Food initiative and are grateful for the funds from the HCFS to assist us in doing so.”

Bates is the third recipient of the annual award. The winners in previous years were the University of California, Santa Cruz and Dickinson College.

Judges were particularly impressed with Bates initiatives in environmental sustainability, according to Melissa Ezarik, managing editor of University Business, a national business magazine for higher education based in Norwalk, Conn.

“With a full 82 percent of waste diverted from the waste stream through composting, recycling, or a program where waste is sent to a local pig farmer, the building doesn’t even have enough waste to fill a dumpster,” Ezarik said. “So there isn’t one. And nearly one-third of the food budget is spent locally.”

Although the College’s New Dining Commons is a new facility, by student request the seating area maintains the feel of the old Commons. The servery was designed for easy traffic flow, capable of handling 500 or more within 30 to 45 minutes.

“We’re very excited to be recognized for something that is central to the student experience here at Bates,” said Director or Dining Services Christine Schwartz. “We have a longstanding commitment to environmental sustainability at Bates, and our new facility has allowed us to enhance our sustainability mission.”

Higher education institutions from across the nation submitted their dining programs for consideration with 65 entries received. Entries were evaluated by three editors and the magazine’s art director (also a college parent) as well as by a recent college grad, a graduate student and Neal A. Raisman, a higher education consultant and former college president.

The Dining Halls of Distinction program reflects excellence in all aspects of dining operations, including atmosphere, service, variety of offerings, guest satisfaction, environmental sustainability and financial stability. Other schools receiving a top designation are Boston University (large private institution); Bucknell University (medium/small private institution); and Virginia Commonwealth University (public institution). View story from University Business, October 2009.

The screening begins at 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 3, in Olin Arts Concert Hall, 75 Russell St. The film is 90 minutes long.

Hirshberg appears in the film, which scrutinizes the food we eat and how it is produced. He’ll be joined in the Bates event by college Dining Services Director Christine Schwartz. The event is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call 207-786-6476.

Produced and directed by Robert Kenner, Food, Inc. aims to reveal the inside story of American food, the corporations that often place greater value on profit than consumer health, and the regulatory agencies, like the USDA and FDA, that oversee the industry.

Called “an essential, indelible documentary” by Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers, Food, Inc. features interviews with such respected experts as Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, and Omnivore’s Dilemma author Michael Pollan. Food-industry figures striving to change the status quo, like Polyface Farms’ Joel Salatin and Stonyfield’s Hirshberg, are featured describing their efforts to improve the quality of the food Americans consume.

Now chairman, president and “CE-Yo” of Stonyfield, Hirshberg came to the organization in 1983 as director of the Rural Education Center, the small organic farming school (with only seven cows) that spawned the yogurt operation. A renowned speaker on topics such as sustainability, organic agriculture and socially responsible business practices, Hirschberg is author of the 2008 book Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World (Hyperion).

The Londonderry, N.H.-based Stonyfield joined forces with Groupe Danone in 2001 to create Stonyfield Europe, of which Hirschberg was named managing director in 2005. Today, Stonyfield Farm makes an estimated $320 million in annual sales while always keeping its social and environmental missions square in its sights.

Known for its progressive food-service practices, Bates has announced a pioneering partnership with the highly regarded nutrition navigation system Guiding Stars. First implemented in 2006 and now used in some 1,400 grocery stores, the science-based Guiding Stars system rates foods with zero to three stars highlighting items according to good, better or best nutritional value, respectively. The Bates partnership is Guiding Stars Licensing Company’s first with a college.

“At Bates, we believe strongly in nourishing mind and body by offering food that’s fresh, delicious and healthful,” said Christine Schwartz, director of Dining Services. “Guiding Stars lets us do that much more effectively — it gives our customers an easy guide to enhance their menu choices.”

By Allison Lizars ’11

Bates Dining Services has received a statewide award honoring commitment to the employment of people with disabilities.

At an Oct. 30 symposium in Freeport, Working Together, a partnership of Maine businesses striving to advance the employment of people with disabilities, presented Bates with the annual Workforce Achievement Award.

Christine Schwartz, Dining Services director, accepted the award for Bates.

Also known as the “Just Do It” award, the Workforce Achievement Award recognizes Maine businesses that are especially dedicated to and effective in this important cause.

Amie Parker, a human resources manager at Bates, credits Schwartz with a powerful commitment to hiring employees with disabilities. Schwartz “not only works to ensure that these individuals feel a sense of inclusion,” Parker says, but “actively works to hire and retain employees with developmental disabilities.

“Because of Schwartz’s efforts, our workforce is more diverse and richer than ever,” says Parker.

Bates and its Dining Services have proclaimed Nourishing Body and Mind: Bates Contemplates Food as a theme for this academic year. The initiative celebrates Bates’ dining and food-procurement practices; spotlights the college’s unusually high use of local foods and beverages — 28 percent; and calls for heightened awareness across campus of the consequences of individual food choices.

Bates has been recognized nationally for its innovative approach to educational food services, particularly in terms of environmental sustainability. Dining Services received Renew America’s National Award for Sustainability in 1999 and 2000, and in 1999 received the Christopher and Dana Reeve Award for Environmental Leadership.

In March 2002, Farming magazine held Bates up as a model of institutional cooperation with local growers.

In 2001, a Bates culinary team won a bronze medal in the Seventh Annual Governor’s Great Taste of Maine lobster recipe competition — the first time a collegiate dining team placed in the contest. The Bates entry, grilled lobster-stuffed crepes with baby shrimp hollandaise and fresh Maine blueberry and blackberry compote, placed third in a field of 100 recipes submitted by well-known dining establishments throughout the state.

In recent weeks we’ve learned what Dining Services director Christine Schwartz likes about the new dining Commons. Now it’s the turn of Paul Farnsworth, Bates’ project manager for the building.

A mechanical engineer, Farnsworth especially appreciates the ventilation scheme. There’s no building-wide air conditioning per se. Instead, it’s essentially a natural system, he explained: the high-peaked main dining hall and an adjacent airshaft will create a chimney effect to pull fresh air in through windows that can actually be opened — an unusual feature these days in large new buildings.

The rising air will exit through the ventilation monitor, that big box on the roof. The air handling isn’t entirely natural, as the monitor contains big exhaust fans that will give nature a boost on the warmest days. Also in the monitor is a clever device that can direct rising air either straight outside or, on cold days, back down into the building so its heat won’t be wasted.

Farnsworth also appreciates the sheer volume of the new Commons, especially that soaring dining hall and the 3,200-square-foot mezzanine that overlooks it. The building, he laughed, is “anticlaustrophobic.”

Finally, he said, “the level of finishes is special.” He pointed to the dark-gray granite that lines the main stairway and covers other walls, and to the pale maple wood throughout the interior, appearing as a veneer on the walls and as trim around doorways and on handrails.

In the realm of special finishes, we add another nominee: the tiles in the servery area. These include expanses of gleaming white wall tile and clusters of smaller glass squares in vivid splashes of mixed color.

The servery, in fact, is as much of a feast for the eyes as its cuisine will be for the palate. Snazzy ceiling fixtures, shiny stainless steel and abundant glass provide a lively play of light. Even the shapes of the food stations are attractive, especially the circular brick oven.

The serving stations are close to complete, with the millwork — cabinets, counters, knee walls, etc. — expected to be done this week. The pressure now is on the kitchen equipment installer, who is placing and connecting the myriad grills, broilers, ovens, burners, chillers and other gadgets that turn groceries into food.

Like much that happens in the construction biz, Farnsworth explained, that work rarely offers the gratification of orderly and straightforward progress. It’s not a march, it’s a dance: There are test-fittings, adjustments and delays if another trade needs to get at a location.

For example, Farnsworth pointed to a chrome pipe that supports a glass sneeze guard at the brick oven. The pipe attaches to a piece of wood inside a counter, close to an electrical junction box. So attaching that one piece involves the kitchen-equipment technician, carpenters and perhaps an electrician if the junction box is in the wrong place.

Meanwhile, the second story of the new dining Commons is essentially finished, aside from a lot of cleaning. The last big chore upstairs, Farnsworth reported, was the laying of carpet during the weekend of Jan. 12.

He noted that weekend work for the carpet installers, or any of the trades, is nothing unusual. Workers have been on the job six days a week since ground was broken in autumn 2006. The project has been on the fast track since it began, and a six-day work week also affords logistical flexibility. For instance, because covering a floor pretty much precludes any other work in a given space, the carpet crew has often gone in on Saturdays, when there are fewer other trades to conflict with.

That carpet, meanwhile, has a dynamic rectilinear pattern in dark-chocolate brown and a pale tan that echoes the ubiquitous maple. The same material will appear throughout the building, and in fact the carpet people were prepping the main dining hall when Campus Construction Update passed through on Jan. 18.

With that 5,900-square-foot floor cordoned off, bare of workers and equipment, it was the first time we were really able to grasp the luxury of space that diners will enjoy in the new Commons. Anticlaustrophobic indeed.

Another great leap forward in the second story was the removal of staging in the air-and-light shaft that reaches up to the ventilation monitor. That happened after workers hung the light fixtures and repainted the walls in a shade of green less violent than the previous choice.

Speaking of that monitor — and it may be the last time we do in this space — louvers were installed on its exterior during the second week of January. Also in the heavens, Farnsworth reported, roofers took advantage of warm weather that week to work on flashing and other finishing touches on the slate roof. And with the hanging of the main doors earlier in the month, major exterior work on the new Commons is done.

That same week, landscapers spread smooth blue-gray stones in the viewing garden next to the south-facing dining hall windows.

Finally, Farnsworth expects to pass another milestone on Jan. 23, when the city of Lewiston issues a certificate of occupancy. This culminates a series of safety-related inspections covering everything from the elevator to fire alarms to emergency egress issues.

The Den: We received additional information about plans for the Den when Memorial Commons goes dark in less than a month. The Den’s new hours will be 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., and it will be closed in the summer.

More imminently, Dining Services director Christine Schwartz announced that with old Commons closing, the Den will be used only for student dining

during most of the winter recess, from Feb. 16 through 21. It’s expected that the new dining hall will serve its first meal to students Feb. 24, with a soft opening — aka “burn and learn,” in Schwartz’s words — during the days just prior.

Notes from underground: We haven’t talked about the steam heating system for a while, but one last chore was recently checked off that list. Now complete, the replacement of a connection between the steam plant and Merrill Gym was stalled some weeks ago when it was discovered that the existing steam lines were inaccessibly located beneath telecom conduits encased in concrete. Because the gym has own boilers, it wasn’t a pressing task.

“It was easier just to find a different path for the steam, but that took several rounds of engineering because we didn’t want to reorder the piping,” which is custom-made, Farnsworth said. “We found a way around.”

Eventually those old telecom lines won’t be needed, Farnsworth noted. But they won’t be wasted. In 20 or 50 years their rediscovery will give Campus Construction Update fodder for a column.

Can we talk? What do you think about the campus improvements process? What would you like to know about it? What do you know that we don’t? We want to hear from you. Please e-mail your questions and comments to Doug Hubley, with “Construction Update” in the subject line.

Our back pages: Visit the index of earlier Campus Construction Updates.

A student serving on a food advisory committee once told Christine Schwartz, Dining Services’ director, that anticipating a meal at the current Memorial Commons is like getting psyched up for battle.

“You pretty much have to fight your way through Commons now” because of the way the space is arranged, Schwartz said. New arrivals at mealtime, still burdened with coats and backpacks, immediately find themselves in a confusion of food stations and fellow diners pressing in all directions.

All that will change when the new Commons opens in February.

In the present dining hall, “you come in and you’re forced to make a food choice,” Schwartz said. The new facility will turn that around: “You’ll come in and choose your seat, and then have time to reflect upon what you actually want to eat.”

Schwartz added that “instead of just a few points at which people can make food choices, there will be 15″ — the various stations in the area called the servery, such as the “Euro-kitchen” with its array of comfort foods, a grill for burgers and other sizzling treats, the pizza lover’s brick oven and a vegan-vegetarian stand.

In addition to easing the congestion, spreading the choices around this way will engender more depth and imagination in the menu. Nowadays, Schwartz said, “it’s hard to realize exactly all we have to offer because it’s all sort of meshed together.”

But as diners become more conscious of Dining Services’ creative reach, they’ll want more variety. “In the long run, it will mean a lot of improvement in the food on offer,” Schwartz said. “It’s certainly going to change the way students perceive Commons.”

In another strategic advance over the current setup, “most of the food will be finished out front,” in full view of the diners, she explained. “You want as much interaction between the customer and the cook as possible. It allows us to make a product that’s fresher and more to order. The customers get better food and we’ll have less waste.”

The highly energetic Schwartz and her staff have been involved in the design of the new facility every step of the way. “I know where every drain, every outlet, every table and every piece of equipment is going,” the director said.

In fact, her counterparts at other schools have been surprised by, even a bit jealous of, the amount of input Dining Services has enjoyed.

“Functionally, we got everything we wanted,” Schwartz said. She is particularly jazzed by the kitchen’s battery of “blast chillers,” which can cool or freeze food rapidly enough to avoid the damage caused by conventional refrigeration. That will enable Dining Services to purchase produce locally in season, when it costs the least but there are few people around to eat it, and serve it during the academic year without sacrificing much quality.

So when you’re fixing your cereal during the long cold winter of 2008–09, watch for tempting displays of good Maine strawberries and blueberries to put over it.

Another new feature is the Euro-kitchen, aka Euro Grill. The latter is a bit of a misnomer: While the concept of a sequenced suite of cooking appliances comes from Europe, a grill is just a part of the orchestra. Schwartz described the Euro Grill offerings as “comfort foods — your mashed potatoes, turkey, roast beef. All those things that make us feel warm and fuzzy on a cold day.”

A brick oven, in a spectacular large island that is the first station you’ll encounter entering the servery, is another bragging point. But Schwartz hastened to explain that while this massive installation made by Wood Stone will be used for pizza, that’s just one slice of its capabilities.

Though cooks from time immemorial have been working with the residual heat that lingers in a stone fireplace, Dining Services has never been equipped to do it. Now, after a day of firing pizzas, Schwartz’s chefs can shut off the gas, put roasts into the oven and slow-cook them overnight.

Schwartz herself could do it, in fact, since she went to the factory in Washington state to train on the Wood Stone. The unit “is really expensive,” she said, “and I wanted to make sure it was the right thing for Bates.”

Finally, with Memorial Commons just weeks away from becoming a memory itself, we asked Schwartz to clarify what will become of the Bobcat Den, whose friendly staff and intimate atmosphere have made it a cult favorite.

The hours will be reduced, she said, but the Den won’t be shut down anytime soon. Instead, a new gathering place designed to provide a Dennish kind of café feel will likely be included when the “Main Street” phase of the campus master plan is built out, some years down the road.

So what’s up on the construction front? On Jan. 4 project manager Paul Farnsworth took Campus Construction Update through the new Commons, including a couple of newly christened spaces.

Once known simply as the Arcade, the main east-west corridor on the first floor is now called the MacNaughton Arcade. The space was made possible by a gift in honor of his family from Trustee David MacNaughton ’73.

Opening onto the arcade is Milt’s, a convenience store-cum-fast food shop previously called the Emporium. Donor David Barlow ’79 chose the name to honor Milton Lindholm ’35, dean emeritus of admissions.

Across the MacNaughton Arcade from Milt’s is a space that may rival the Den as a place to gather after dark. The so-called arcade dining area, painted a vivid green, will sport not just tables but booths upholstered by acclaimed Portland designer Angela Adams.

By day, a retractable glass wall will close the space off from the arcade, and it will serve as Commons seating. After dining-hall hours, though, the wall will be retracted and night owls will be able to bring their sandwiches or prepacked meals from Milt’s to a cozy booth.

The Commons’ exterior is largely complete, giving passers-by an impression of inactivity that’s quite misleading. Inside, the race is on to get the facility ready to receive Dining Services staff by the end of January. Painting, carpeting and other surface work is going hot and heavy throughout this sprawling space. But the focus of activity is on the servery.

Here, with most of the fixed equipment in place and the room surfaces done, workers are concentrating on millwork — e.g. countertops, cabinetry and knee walls — and installing fittings such as sneeze shields and utensil holders.

As mentioned previously, the circular station housing the brick oven is the star of this show. One finishing touch will be a neon accent light around the top of the station — no words, just a glowing line. As Farnsworth explained, “we had strong feedback from the students. They didn’t want it to look like a food court.”

Also striking is the bakery. Located at the rear of the servery, it suggests a storefront, with its gleaming tile façade, mock marquee over the doorway and four big windows that afford views into the work area.

Meanwhile, in the dining hall and its mezzanine, the finish work still outstanding includes sheets of maple veneer that will cover baseboards and accent the giant windows. Where the theme for the building’s exterior is charcoal-gray granite and brick, on the inside pale woods complement the dark stone. Along with the maple, Forest Stewardship Council-certified Western hemlock is being used on certain ceilings.

The kitchens, in an area behind the servery that also includes offices, freezers and various storage and service rooms, are all but finished. In a marked contrast with the cramped, dark workspaces in the current Commons, the new kitchens are spacious and well-lit by east-facing windows.

Also in this mazelike area behind the scenes is a room full of miscellany awaiting deployment. Included are eight pallets of food-service gear that Schwartz bought when she saw it at, of all places, the local Marden’s discount department store. The prices were irresistible, Farnsworth said — so much so that former Dining Services director Bob Volpi, now at Williams, came north to take advantage of the sale.

This room also reminded us that large or small, moving is moving. As with every shift of household you have ever seen, there was, along one wall and stacked to the ceiling, a pile of banana boxes packed full and closed with their handy covers.

Can we talk? What do you think about the campus improvements process?What would you like to know about it? What do you know that we don’t? We want to hear from you. Please e-mail your questions and comments to Doug Hubley, with “Construction Update” in the subject line.

Our back pages: Visit the index of earlier Campus Construction Updates.

-Doug Hubley, Office of Communications and Media Relations