WCU dedicates Courtyard Dining Hall
Amber McKendrick, a WCU staff member, alumna and past recipient of the Adah C. and Horatio Helder Scholarship, helps Chancellor John W. Bardo unveil a plaque at Courtyard Dining Hall in honor of the Helders as part of a building dedication ceremony on March 11. The facility was built on the site of WCU’s former Helder Residence Hall.
More than 100 people – including faculty, staff and students, and representatives of several corporate food partners – were on hand to watch university officials dedicate the Courtyard Dining Hall, and to enjoy samples from Starbucks, McAlister’s Deli and Panda Express.
Chancellor John W. Bardo told the crowd that the fall 2009 opening of the $17.6 million, 53,250 square-foot facility has made his job a little less complicated lately.
“As chancellor, I always used to say that if I have complaints about parking and food, I am winning. If that’s all people have to complain about, then we’re doing something right,” Bardo said. “This year, I’m just hearing complaints about parking, so we must be doing something else right.”
The Courtyard replaces Dodson Cafeteria, which Bardo described as a state-of-the-art campus dining facility when it was built in 1966, and anything but state-of-the-art prior to its demolition in July.
“During the later days of Dodson, the majority of food dollars spent on this campus were spent in three little establishments in the food court of A.K. Hinds University Center,” he said. “Now, we once again have a state-of-the-art dining facility.”
David Heidenberg, regional vice president of Aramark, WCU’s food service partner, agreed. “This is one of the finest dining facilities that I have seen in all of the Southeast,” Heidenberg said.
Bardo also called the opening of the new dining hall the latest step in a series of improvements to the center of campus designed to enhance the living and learning experience for WCU students. The renovation of the University Center, completed in 2004, was the first step, resulting in a new “living room” where students could gather, he said.
Four new residence halls have opened since 2004, including Balsam Residence Hall adjacent to the Courtyard. A fifth, Blue Ridge Residence Hall, is rising beside Balsam, providing new bedrooms for students. The Campus Recreation Center, which opened in fall 2008, serves as a “rec room” for students, Bardo said. With the Courtyard, they now have a new “dining room,” he said.
The dining room is one of the most important rooms of a home, said Steve Warren, chair of WCU’s board of trustees. “There really isn’t a place that provides a greater sense of community than the dinner table. This will be where the WCU family comes together at the end of the day to share their lives. Ideas will be discussed and filtered here. Laughter will be enjoyed here. Permanent connections will be made here,” Warren said.
“To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, ‘If you meet someone at the dinner table who has spent their life educating themselves, you rise from that table with the knowledge that a high ideal has touched and blessed your day,’” he said.
Chuck Wooten, WCU vice chancellor for administration and finance, reminded the audience that the Courtyard Dining Hall is the first new construction on campus dedicated solely to student dining in more than 40 years.
“We now truly believe that this part of campus has become the signature location for our students,” Wooten said. “It is a place to live, a place to eat, a place to enjoy recreation, and a place to further academic pursuits.”
Among those in attendance for the ceremony was Stedman Mitchell, who was the university’s first cafeteria manager and who oversaw the opening of both Brown Cafeteria (since closed) in 1960 and Dodson Cafeteria in 1966. “This is absolutely amazing to see,” said Mitchell, who came to work at WCU in 1944 and who retired in 1976. “Things certainly have changed a lot over the years.”
Although he has not been in Cullowhee as long as Mitchell, Josh Cotton, Student Government Association president, agreed.
“As a freshman, I remember going to Dodson and talking to the employees there,” Cotton said. “We were once the laughing stock of the campus dining services industry; now we are the envy of the industry.”
Construction on Courtyard Dining Hall began in 2007 on the site where Helder Residence Hall once stood. As part of Thursday’s ceremony, Bardo unveiled a plaque in honor of the residence hall’s namesakes, the late Horatio A. and Adah Clark Helder. Assisting him was Amber McKendrick, a WCU staff member and a past recipient of the Helder Scholarship, which provides financial assistance to students from Haywood County, where Horatio Helder was an executive with Champion Papers of Canton.
During the dedication ceremony, Wooten expressed his appreciation to those who helped make the Courtyard Dining Hall a reality: on-campus project managers from the facilities management, Joe Walker, Wiley Harris and Alan Sellars; and representatives of project architect Clark Nexsen, general contractor Yeargin, Potter & Shackleford, campus dining partner Aramark, and “branded food” partners McAlister’s Deli, Panda Express, Freshens, Starbucks and Pepsi-Cola.
