The Hofstra
HEMPSTEAD, NY VOL. 80
Issue 9
Chronicle
Tuesday November 4, 2014
KEEPING THE HOFSTRA COMMUNITY INFORMED SINCE 1935
Health violations cast student doubt on Lackmann By Lauren del Valle and Ehlayna Napolitano NEWS EDITORS
She took her crepe to-go, planning to eat it in her dorm room. When she got there, however, she discovered the blueberries inside were “shriveled and rotten.” Frustrated by past gainless confrontations with oncampus Lackmann staff, Julie Rafatpanah contacted the Nassau County Department of Health. That was last spring. Her complaint was filed and investigated. Health regulations were fulfilled, but her concerns did not wane, and when she returned as a Welcome Week leader at the end of this August, Rafatpanah found herself calling the Department of Health again. On Aug. 29 Rafatpanah reached out once more. Via phone and email, she filed another complaint regarding a moldy croissant sold to her at the Starbucks kiosk in the Mack Student Center. She included a picture of the croissant in her email. Rafatpanah also suggested that the health inspector look into multiple food establishments, since Lackmann runs all food locations on campus. The
inspector called her back, but suggested that the croissant, essentially, could not have been sold to her at the establishment, saying that the Starbucks wasn’t open at the time, Rafatpanah said. Sometime between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. Rafatpanah said she purchased the croissant. According to Welcome Week documentation published by the Office of Student Leadership and Affairs (OSLA), the Student Center Starbucks kiosk serviced customers from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Aug. 29. Lackmann Culinary Services has been a part of Hofstra’s campus since 1992, according to Dennis Lestrange, the resident district manager for Lackmann at Hofstra. In 2009, it became a part of Compass Group, Inc. and now functions as a subsidiary of that corporation. Lackmann has violated health code regulations in the past. Since the fall semester of 2013, eight critical violations (also known as red violations) have been found during regular inspections at various locations on campus, according to documentation on open.ny.gov, an interactive, staterun website that gives citizens access to New York government
Photo courtesy of Julie Rafatpanah Julie Rafatpanah sent this photo of mold on a croissant bought at the Starbucks kiosk in the Student Center to the Department of Health in August.
documents. Violations were primarily aimed at temperature regulations and cross-contamination issues. Violation descriptions reported, “accurate thermometers [were] not available or used to evaluate potentially hazardous food temperatures,” as well as “cooked
or prepared foods are subject to cross-contamination from raw foods.” The former accounted for two of the eight, and the latter accounted for four. Other violations included bare hand contact with food and improperly stored canned goods, according to the documentation.
Prior to August of 2013, the last critical violation was documented in 2009.
Continued on A3
Day of Dialogue seeks to create “free space” By Sean Williams staff writer
Hofstra’s Day of Dialogue was held this past Wednesday, Oct. 29 at various locations on campus. The event, hosted by the Center for Civic Engagement, encouraged students, professors and guest speakers to interact with one another in organized forums. The event featured topics that ranged from politics in sports to an evaluation on America’s handling of the issue of the Islamic State of
Iraq and Syria (ISIS). After years of hosting a Day of Dialogue once each semester, the event is now held only in autumn, a decision that seemed to bolster student attendance and enthusiasm for the panels. Though many professors take time out of class to have students go to the Dialogues, many students said that they would have gone anyway, due to the interesting topics. “I think the tradition of the niversity is to foster a climate of intel-
lectual exchange and make space as free as possible for people to talk about controversial ideas and to formulate opinions and express them to one another in a place that is safe. Day of Dialogue is the one day we set aside to do such work,” said Brenda Elsey, a professor in the history department and chair for the advisory board of the Center for Civic Engagement. Discussions generally focused on the idea of politics, both domestic and international, with a
particular emphasis on race and the Middle East, two areas that weigh heavily on the minds of the American public, especially college students. Most panels featured a brief introductory lecture by the guest speakers and professors before opening the floor up for questions from students, members of the community and faculty alike. “How do you raise people’s consciousness so it gets fixed in their conscience?” professor Michael
D’Innocenzo asked the audience, in the discussion on police-community relations after the incidents in Ferguson, Mo. Most students seemed receptive to the speakers and topics, though one complaint was the time limits on the presentations. Dialogues ranged from 55 minutes to an hour and a half, and some were frustrated not by the value of
Continued on A2