Feeding the Frosh: Orientation with CDS

For many frosh (your author included), Orientation Week provides the foremost introduction to Caltech Dining Services (C.D.S.). While the fall term meal plan activated on the fourth day of orientation (September 24), meals remained catered throughout the event.

“We wanted to create intentional opportunities for new students to build community,” explains Isabel Peng, the director of New Student Transition Programs and First Year Experience at Caltech, “and shared meals were one way to do that.” However, as different offices on campus are responsible for different portions of orientation, C.D.S. receives catering requests from multiple sources. For example, the lunch on Move-In Day (September 21st) was ordered by the office of Student and Family Engagement (SFE), while the Office of the President coordinated the dinner at the President’s Residence. C.D.S. collects requested meals from all the offices for all orientation events, then turns them into an exciting yet practical menu. “We like to start at the beginning of August,” says Jaime Reyes, director of C.D.S., “and lay [the menus] out so there are no repeats [of dishes].”

C.D.S. also provides meals for Graduate Student Orientation and the welcome for Caltech’s new postdocs, both of which occur concurrently with first-year undergraduate orientation. In order to plan for multiple meals at the same time, Jaime splits his staff into teams: “We ha[d] one group in charge of the brunch [after Convocation]… one sous chef led a team of five cooks.” On top of the special events during the weeks before fall term, C.D.S. also keeps open Browne Dining Hall, Red Door, and Broad—though with limited hours and menus—for staff, faculty, and student athletes. “It is a lot of work,” says Jaime, “but as long as you do your homework, you’ll be successful.”

That homework? Planning. With some catered meals reaching over 700 hungry participants, C.D.S. tries to forecast how much food will be eaten to reduce waste. This prediction starts with the industry standard baseline of how much a typical person consumes and is adjusted based on the target audience using previously collected data. “A normal person would eat between 4-5 ounces [of pulled pork],” explains Jaime, “But the grad students are hungry… they always want a lot of food, so we have to make adjustments based on that.” Altogether, C.D.S. served around 160 pounds of pulled pork during the orientation.

Beyond logistics, C.D.S. regularly conducts taste tests as a form of quality control, trying every new dish before placing it on the menu. However, student feedback is always appreciated: Jaime encourages students to join the Food Service Committee as the representative for their House, complete C.D.S. surveys, or talk directly to kitchen staff.

Jaime acknowledges that responses are often contradictory, but his team tries their best to accommodate every student. With enough frosh alone to decimate forty pies in one sitting, there’s plenty of work on C.D.S.’s plate.