Every Friday evening for 12 weeks during the Fall 2019 semester, a handful of students gathered in Kidde 228 or EAS 222 to watch a movie with their friends. Most of these movie nights — hosted by SITTV — featured fresh popcorn from Bow Tie Hoboken Cinemas, in addition to plentiful theater candy and canned soda from grocery stores such as ShopRite and Costco. As some of these events had close to 50 people attending, bountiful refreshments needed to be kept in supply. Fortunately, by the grace of the Student Government Association Budget Committee and the great deals at local stores, that was not a difficult task; for example, one day in November SITTV spent $102.88 at Bow Tie and ShopRite, which got us enough popcorn, candy, and soda for the next three events. Factoring in the attendance numbers for those events, this meant we spent roughly $1.37 per person per event — almost a full order of magnitude less than the SGA recommends. Despite this low per-capita dollar amount, the provided refreshments were quite generous, featuring every type of Coca-Cola brand soda you can imagine (including several which no one had heard of before, such as Tab), plenty of both chocolate and non-chocolate name-brand candies, and some of the best popcorn you can buy. In fact, every week, consistently, someone would ask the event organizers where we got the popcorn from because it was so good. Life was good.
Flash forward to Friday, January 24, 2020. The first Friday of the Spring 2020 semester, and the first movie night of the new decade. The movie being shown — Knives Out — had already attracted a fair amount of attention from previous attendees. I began the pre-event routine the same way that I had during the previous semester, with a call to Bow Tie Hoboken Cinemas to place an order for popcorn which I would pick up later in the day. It takes a long time to make as much popcorn as we need, so they ask me to call a few hours in advance. After the call, I took a trip to the Office of Student Life to pick up the PCard, which Stevens organizations use for purchases at retail outlets using their organization’s money. Once I had the PCard, I would drive to ShopRite or Costco to buy as much candy and canned soda as that week’s budget allowed for, and then pick up the popcorn on the way back to campus. As it usually takes about half an hour to set up all the refreshments, get the movie ready to play, organize event sign-in, etc., I generally try to arrive at the event location one hour before the start time. This day, however, I decided to play it safe and begin two or three hours earlier, just to make sure nothing went wrong that I couldn’t account for.
Unfortunately for me, something went wrong that I couldn’t account for: Stevens.
The event was slated to begin at 5:00 p.m. By 2:30, I had sent emails and notifications advertising the event (posters had been put up the weekend prior, proudly telling passers-by that “popcorn and candy will be served”) and left for the Office of Student Life. It was a shorter walk from my Shipyard North Independence apartment than usual, as Student Life had relocated from the 10th floor of the Wesley J. Howe Center to the recently re-opened Student Center near the end of the Fall 2019 semester. The PCard gatekeeper at Student Life smiled at me when I walked in the office. This would now be my 10th or 11th time going through the same ritual at more or less the same time of the day and week. We both knew the plan well. She went through the usual questions — what will I be purchasing, where will I be purchasing it from, what organization’s account will I be charging, how much will I be spending, etc. Close to a dozen times prior I had gone through these simple questions, been handed a PCard, and went on my merry way.
Only this time, that didn’t happen.
This time, there were rumors of a new rule being put in place. Rumors, but we wanted to be sure, so we called Associate Director of Student Life Christopher Shemanski. Shemanski said yes, the rules have changed. Student organizations are no longer permitted to purchase any amount of food items from anywhere unless Compass One, which handles catering and dining services for Stevens, approves it. For those who are unaware, the Spring 2018 rule dictated snack items that cost less than $100 could be purchased by organizations without having to ask anyone for permission. That rule changed last semester when the dollar amount lowered to $50. Organizations were told then that the change was to bring the policy in line with the real contract between Stevens and Compass One. According to Student Life, the $50 rule was the real rule that should have been enforced the whole time.
Evidently, that was not true.
I was told that I needed a signed waiver from Compass One permitting me to purchase what I was going to purchase. Okay, no problem. I had done that a few times during the previous semester when I wanted to prepare for future events and get more than $50 worth of soda or candy. Compass One doesn’t even offer Coke products, so that should have been no issue. It was never an issue during the Fall 2019 semester.
It was an issue.
I went to the Catering office, located on the fourth floor of the Howe Center. I filled out a waiver form, detailing exactly what I was going to buy, where I was going to buy it from, and why I needed to go outside of Compass One to do it (the answer, of course, being that Compass One didn’t offer what I wanted to buy), then handed off the form to the only person in the Catering office at the time. They told me they would bring it to their supervisor to sign it and I would just have to wait a moment.
After waiting 25 minutes, during which time a handful of other student organization representatives arrived on the fourth floor Howe lobby distressed, having been told the same thing by Student Life that I had, the Catering official finally returned. My waiver request was denied. They told me the denial was because a new policy put in place recently states that no waiver forms will be approved within 24 hours of the event time. Confused (and, at this time, getting increasingly angry with the unannounced policy changes that seemed designed specifically to prevent me from running my event), I asked them why they would care when the waiver is submitted when they explicitly will not be involved with the event. They told me that the policy came from above and the official I was speaking to was not involved in the decision-making process. I asked if I could have the name of the person or group of people who made the policy. I was told that I could not. What they did offer me was that the official could ask around to see if they could provide part of what I was trying to get a waiver for themselves. At this point, I became worried that I would have to confront the people who arrive at my event with broken promises of refreshments, so I agreed.
I waited for another 20 minutes, at which point several of the people waiting with me made frantic phone calls to their organization’s treasurers or presidents telling them of the sudden situation change. At this point, it was approaching four o’clock, and I was beginning to worry that I wouldn’t have time to set up for the event even if Catering did provide their services. The official eventually returned and gave me one of the most insulting pieces of news I have ever received as a Stevens student.
Compass One could provide me with two and a half cases of Pepsi and enough off-the-shelf popcorn for six people. They could not provide any candy because an event “for some high ups” had consumed all of the candy they had in stock. The six people’s worth of popcorn and 30 cans of Pepsi would cost me one hundred dollars.
Honestly, I should have said no. The offer they made me was insane. For $100 last semester, I could get over 200 cans of soda, enough freshly-popped and buttered popcorn for 75 people, and a bucket full of so much candy that I couldn’t even begin to enumerate it. Instead, Compass One was going to give me scraps and charge me the same amount. If I was a public event planner and Compass One was a commercial catering service and they had made me this offer, I would have laughed in their face and walked out, never to return.
Unfortunately, I didn’t have the opportunity. Stevens had changed several policies, without any prior announcement, public notification, or grace period, and was now forcing me to either spend $100 on dog food or have my first event of the semester — the one which will surely determine if some people will become longtime regulars of my organization or leave in disappointment — be held completely dry and devoid of pleasantries. So I said yes. As if to kick sand into my eyes after breaking my kneecaps, just as I was about to leave, the Catering official told me that I would need to deliver the food myself. Catering staff, they told me, was busy at the time and couldn’t bring it over themselves.
Upset, insulted, and outraged, I rushed back to the Office of Student Life. After a brief yet energetic discussion with some members of Student Life, including Shemanski, I was allowed to ignore the new policy for that day and use the PCard to purchase the popcorn I had already ordered. For seeing that amount of reason, however small in the face of what I had been dealing with for the previous two hours, I do thank Shemanski and the other members of Student Life. They were certainly more rational than Compass One.
Ultimately, having to deal with all of these unexpected issues led to the event starting 40 minutes later than its announced start time, despite beginning preparations hours earlier than usual. There was still no candy or Coke. The Pepsi that Compass One gave me ran out almost immediately, as we had more people at the event than cans. I honestly feel as if I have been scammed into being forced to spend gross amounts of money on seriously degraded service.
I have heard rumors that Compass One is planning on making some changes soon that may at least partially address some of these issues, but only time will tell if that is true or not. I am, as a whole, thoroughly disappointed in how almost everyone in this situation has acted, as well as both the new policies being established without reason or logic behind them and the method in which different aspects of the Stevens administration and its contractors have chosen to enforce those policies. We all should expect better.
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