MOON TOWNSHIP — In order to make campus life safer for students during the ongoing global pandemic, Robert Morris University has adjusted its traditional dining service experience. Students are required to wear face coverings and follow all directional signage placed throughout the café, as well as modifications to seating  to accommodate for proper social distancing.

While residential students may have mixed opinions about the new adjustments, student workers for dining services have their own thoughts on the effectiveness of the changes.

“There have been a lot of changes,” said Kayla Losekamp, who has worked with dining services for three semesters. “We put the six foot distance circles; the red lines across so that you can only stand a couple inches away from the person. We put a lot of clear dividers up. Everyone has to wear a mask. We need to always be washing our hands and there is a lot of sanitizing to make sure that everything is clean at all times.”

These measures have been set in place in accordance with the CDC recommendations, as RMU continues to make efforts to keep the campus community healthy and safe. While it may not seem like a major adjustment, on top of all of the rest of the changes that came along with this semester, it still shows to be a difficult adjustments to most.

“The majority of students do not follow these new guidelines,” said Losekamp. “We see a lot of people coming in without masks. Also, students stand really close to each other. We get that people are roommates and everything, but there is just a lot of standing in one group instead of keeping separated with friends.”

While RMU has made an effort to accommodate the student dining experience during this time, there may be more that they can do to accommodate for a socially distanced café.

One of the things that dining services had tried to offer is take-home options, allowing students to “grab and go” meals to take back to their dorms. While the program is offering another degree of variety to where you can eat, some students expressed a need in diversity for what they can eat.

“If there was something that I could change, I would want there to be better take-home options, like meals to have for later that they have been trying to do,” said sophomore Devin Krajewski, who has worked with dining services for over a year.

Students should follow social distancing guidelines, as well as the advice of dining services staff, when visiting any dining location on campus.