Intoxicated students taking advantage of extended hours at Josiah's and the Gate this fall have harassed and physically assaulted dining service workers, stolen food and created unprecedented messes, Brown Dining Services student manager Diana Frey '05 told the Undergraduate Council of Students Wednesday night.
The new 2 a.m. closing time, which UCS advocated last year, has also caused difficulties in staffing that have stretched the resources of student supervisors, Frey said.
"These shifts have been very, very hard to fill," Frey said. At least half the positions on each late Gate shift are unstaffed, three to four weeks into the program, she said. "We're really concerned that this is not just a first-semester sort of hiccup."
Harassment, combined with clean-up duties that can stretch hours into the early morning, has contributed to plummeting morale among BuDS workers, BuDS Director Gretchen Willis said.
Frey, Willis, Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services David Greene and Interim Dean for Student Life Margaret Klawunn spoke to the general body meeting about the difficulties that have arisen from the extended hours.
Frey asked the body to reconsider its support of the change. "It's not worth the extra convenience," she said. "The extra hour tacked onto the end of the night isn't worth it."
While Greene said that difficulties like staffing and security "are management issues" to be dealt with internally, poor student behavior should be addressed by UCS members as campus leaders, he said.
"Our students (are) disrespecting other students," he said. In addition, he said, the level of theft at Jo's "needs to be addressed."
UCS members said that they supported the new hours and were open to finding solutions that did not return the closing times to 1 a.m.
"These issues can be addressed without taking away that hour," said Campus Life Chair Natalie Schmid '06.
Frey and Willis dismissed suggestions that BuDS offer pay incentives to staff the undesirable shifts, saying that such solutions had not worked at other schools, would not make a difference in the long term and would conflict with the current pay incentive system set up for employees and supervisors.
