Resolution on Faculty Dining

Whereas Rutgers Facilities Management closed all faculty dining facilities at Rutgers New Brunswick in 2022-23. See the attached letter (8/25/23) from the office of the Vice-Chancellor for Student Affairs (Dr. S.B. Mena).

 Whereas opportunities for eating together plays a vital role in sustaining any academic community in that it provides a context for sharing ideas under relaxed circumstances, for interacting across departments and disciplines, for integrating new faculty into the 
Rutgers community, for supporting connections by and with contingent teachers, and for accommodating or promoting interactions with scholars outside Rutgers. Moreover, graduate students often meet professors in other programs in these settings. (Please contrast, in the highlighted sections of the attached, how these arrangements are seen as a matter dominated by issues of variety in dining.)

 Whereas the Rutgers Alumni and Faculty Club has had a problematic record in serving the needs of Rutgers faculty.
 

Whereas over 200 faculty members who habitually used the Busch Dining facility signed a petition in spring 2023 protesting the closing of that facility and have stated that this closure has negatively affected pursuit of their academic goals.
 

Whereas the Office of Student Affairs has made a good start by positively responding to the faculty petition from Busch faculty members and reopening the Busch Faculty Dining facility (although this reopening deserved both general dissemination and specific notification in response to the query of the Budget, Finance, and Infrastructure Committee).
 

Therefore, be it resolved that the New Brunswick Faculty Council respectfully calls upon the office of Provost-Chancellor Professor Conway to appoint a committee, comprising NBFC members, chancellorial/provostial staff, and other qualified participants to devise a plan for returning faculty dining to the entirety of Rutgers-New Brunswick.