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Sent: 2024-09-04
From: dailyeasternnews=overlooked.com@mg.overlooked.com on behalf of dailyeasternnews@overlooked.com
To: Various Recipients

Subject: Panther Bites

Welcome to the DEN digest!


College is hectic. We, at the Daily Eastern News, feel the students and faculty should have a solid grasp of the what's going on in and around the University. A way to weed out the good news from the scuttlebutt (how's that for a word pull).


This is a weekly newsletter produced by students, for the students of Eastern. In our premier edition, we’ll address late night, the panther pantry and football.


Onwards.

Where is the Pizza?


© Rob LeCates / Daily Eastern News

I, like many other students, first heard whispers of Eastern’s treasured Late Night Pizza closing on YikYak (ever the reliable). Naturally, these rumors concerned me deeply. Before students moved in, the Daily Eastern News had a sit down with the director of housing and dining himself, Mark Hudson, hoping to clear things up.

Here’s the scoop:


Late Night is on hiatus, but it will come back. The dining department was hit with a labor shortage before the beginning of the school year. Six out of the 33 kitchen positions are unfilled (18% of staff). Three of these unfilled positions are kitchen laborers. They move crates and unpack food shipments. Eastern normally staffs ten laborers. The other three vacancies are cooks. Eastern normally staffs 23.


With fewer cooks and laborers came the issue of keeping lunch and dinner staffed. Housing and dining had to move around some shifts to keep the essential dining slots open. Unfortunately for the student body, Late Night was cut as collateral. There just weren’t enough workers to cover everything. Afterhours at Stevenson were also limited for the time being.


Staff is being brought in to fill the vacancies. Once they are filled, Late Night reopens. The hiring process for a kitchen position is surprisingly complex, however. Eastern is a public university; the dining workers are considered civil servants and have to go through a state mandated hiring process.


For more specifics, check out this article written by yours truly 😋.


So, when will it come back? Hudson and the dining department are shooting for Sept. 3. The date is heavily subject to change. If the hiring process runs longer than expected, late nights grand re-opening gets pushed back. In the same breath, if a cook is hired early, the students get pizza early.



In other housing and dining news…

Panther Pantry No More.


© Jacob Hamm / Daily Eastern News
The Panther Pantry, a long-standing convenience store situated on the ground flo

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