Protesters interrupt Board of Trustees meeting
April 2, 2014
By Will Wright
A group of students interrupted Tuesday’s UK Board of Trustees meeting to protest the outsourcing of campus dining services.
The students, members of United Students Against Sweatshops, chanted, “No outsourcing and no Sodexo,” to the Board. Sodexo is a food service company that has contracts with other Kentucky universities.
UK has not yet chosen a dining service provider.
Brock Meade, member of the organization, said the group wanted to bring attention to how the company used the Affordable Care Act as a reason to switch some of its full-time employees to part-time status.
“We don’t think (Sodexo’s) goals align with the university’s,” Meade said. “We found Sodexo to be a particuarly bad fit for the university.”
The group filed a request late last week to speak before the Board, Meade said, but the request was denied.
The group’s ideas were supported by trustee Jo Hern Curris, who criticized how the administration has handled the privatization of dining services.
Curris was disappointed with the lack of information given to the Board before the decision to outsource was made.
She also said, in an email to the Kernel, that outsourcing dining may destroy a strong bond UK has with the surrounding agricultural community and that the Board has not heard the financial, social and historic costs to UK if the outsourcing route is taken.
In other business, the Board acknowledged individuals and groups, including those who helped clear snow from campus this winter, for their efforts.
Jake Ingram, the president-elect of Student Government, was introduced to the Board of Trustees on Tuesday by current president Roshan Palli. Ingram’s role will include a spot on the Board of Trustees throughout his term.
“I’ve got a pretty bold plan in terms of what Student Government has planned for the next year,” Ingram told the Board.
The Board also approved the creation of a major in writing, rhetoric and digital studies for the College of Arts and Sciences, effective this fall. Also approved was a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing degree in Arts and Sciences’ English department.
The Board also approved a $10 million grant from the Blue Grass Community Foundation to support a new training facility for the football program.
