Student Dining Council

Students' voice for campus dining

We, the Student Dining Council, are a team of students who advocate for students’ dining voices on and off campus. We work hard to gather student opinions and advocate for them with Bearcat Dining to make them come to fruition. 

The Student Dining Council makes real change on campus through the help of Bearcat Dining and University administration to create the ideal dining experience for students. This not only includes the food items offered on campus but also the promotion of food safety and sustainable food practices. Food opinions are dynamic to the student body and we work hard to keep up with healthy food options all while looking at our environmental impact as a campus. 

How to get involved?

Attend a meeting
We love to hear new ideas and invite any student to stop by our monthly open meetings during the fall and spring semesters. Meetings are held in the Culinary MakerSpace on the ground floor of the Hinman Dining Center.

*If you would like to attend one of our weekly meetings, email scc@binghamton.edu to let us know you are planning to attend.

Our efforts focus on:

• Residential dining: We implement suggestions that bring improvement to our dining halls by working with the chefs and kitchen staff directly.
• Retail dining: We work directly with administration and students to find improvements or additions to all retail dining facilities including the Marketplace, Einstein Bros. Bagels, Starbucks, Subway, Shake Smart and so much more.
• Nutrition: We support our dietitians on campus to gain student feedback about healthier and more sustainable food offerings to better accommodate dietary needs of students.
• Environmental and social responsibility: We ensure the environmental impacts of food purchasing decisions are thoughtfully considered and verify we are doing the best we can to create a sustainable campus.

Student Dining Council notable projects:

• We brought OZZI^TM, a sustainable container recovery program, to campus

• We helped formulate the food safety policy on campus in collaboration with the Student Association (SA), Bearcat Dining, Multicultural Resource Center (MRC), Graduate Student Organization (GSO) and others to endorse and ensure safer food practices on campus
• We team up with OCCT to fund free busing to Binghamton’s local farmer’s market
• We advocated for greater Nite Owl options for more late-night food choices
• We host Super Sample Wednesdays to highlight new food concepts and gather student feedback
• We collaborated to bring new concepts like Starbucks, Quesera and Shake Smart to campus dining
• We helped bring food trucks to campus to expand dining diversity
• We used student feedback, to make updates to menu items, station offerings and operational hours in resident dining