Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-10-09
coLuMBIA's FOOD PROBLEM.
Commons Is Now Under the Manage
 ment of Students.

| ment of Students.
 The university commons at Colum. bia this year will be in the hands oI student managers, a change that ID announced triumphantly on Morning side heights as pointing to studehe control at last" It means that the students. who for years have been complaining of the quality and ser vice of the food, will have a chance to show how 1t is to be done. | But there is one thing that C. IL. Jones, '09, the manager and the class presidents. who will act as his ad- yisers. will have to reckon with, a thing that most students know very little about. That thing is the 1ac- ulty complaint about food ana ser vice.
 Of course with the new faculty clubhouse over at the llbtn street corner on Broadway there may not be so much of that hereafter. But one of the previous iincumbents or the job as university restaurateur used 10 have his life made miserable attend i ing to the complaints of the faculty members.
 According to him the professors wanted more or less money than any folks he had run across before. Ills prize anecdote was of one instructor who came to him in great perturba- tion one day and threatened surt | for damages against the commons. This man said he had got ptomalne poisoning from piece of roast peer the day before. The managers of the restaurant hurried around and got one or the men from the chemistry department, who analysed piece of the beef that happened to be left over. The pro- lessor of chemistry gave the peer q clean bill of health. but that did not satisfy the other fellow, who was try ing to get the commons to pay nls doctor bill. He and his colleagues in the faculty had many heated argu- ments over the matter.
 There used to be another man ln the faculty whose luncheon was ln- variable. He ate guava jelly and cream cheese about every day in the college year, except one day when some one invited him to lunch. Then he took steak.
 Thereafter the commons managers tried to figure out whether he ate the jelly and cheese through choice or because he didn't believe in eating too much when paying for it himself.
 One manager of the university commons which has had man mana gers. by the way, left its incumbency owing the university sum of money due from the percentages to be paid. The authorities wanted that money and they set out to try to get 1t.
 The manager offered to them set of uncollected accounts as a partial offset, and the university did it's best to collect them. A large part or the sum was due from members of the faculty who had signed checks, but subsequently, simply forgot to pay them. And they kept on forgetting | for so long a time that eventually the commons management never did get the money.
 But that never prevented the per- sons who did pay their checks from raising a fuss over the items. The usual procedure was to write note to the manager announcing that the details were wrong. Then the man. ager sprang on the professors the checks signed by them. One man said plainly that some one must have forged his name.
 These minor matters of handling the faculty, whose complaints are rarely less insistent than those of the students, have caused much trou- ble for the persons who have attempt ed to run the university commons. When Columbia first came up on the Heights the restaurant for the stu dents used to be downstairs in the basement of the old West hall.
 The men went to lunch counter took what they wanted and settled as they came out. There were no checks punched and the commons got lpretty badly stung. That was in the regime of Huebner as restraurateur.
 The commons moved over to Uni versity hall before he gave up. Then two former students of the univer- sity, R. C. Megrue and R. C. Gaige, took up the burden, and after two years of struggling they gave 1t over to J. J. Cowen, who held it for two years and quit at the end of the re- cent academic year.
 The vicissitudes have been many. Now the students are taking their whaek at 1t.
 The trouble is that in the main there is only one meal day at Co., llumbia. The lunch hour is the busy time. Since the opening of the dor mitories. Hartley and Livingston halls, there has been more break fast and dinner trade. but the prices have to be low. and do not leave any very large margin for profit.
 Just what will be done by the stu dent management is had to say, but lit is likely that the Columbia Spec