Late last month, Texas Tech University, in Lubbock, opened an interesting new dining hall. Now, I haven’t seen the facility, which according to the university has more than 20,000 square feet devoted to food and cost $45 million to build. So I can’t say whether the dining concepts are anything more than varied, which I gleaned from a news article announcing the grand opening.
No, what I found interesting was the name. The building is called The Commons by United Supermarkets. The name is a nod to the Lubbock-based grocery chain that is a recent university benefactor. United Supermarkets owner Gantt Bumstead donated $3 million to the Texas Tech System to establish two student scholarship programs and support the nursing program at the Health Sciences Center.
What I found intriguing is that the university chose to slap the United Supermarkets name on a foodservice structure, even though the grocery chain had nothing to do with the design or construction of the dining commons.
I imagine that university administrators decided that the timing of the donation and the completion of the dining hall were such that it made sense to endow Tech’s newest building with the name of its latest benefactor. But was it the right move? That’s a question I’d like to pose to the university, because if I’m a Tech student and I see the name of a supermarket adorning the side of the building where I’m eating dinner, I’m likely to add two and two and come up with five.
I mean, it would be a logical conclusion to make, that the chain had or has something to do with either the food students are consuming or the design or equipping of the facility. We know that first impressions can be very hard tom overcome. Would that assumption color students’ expectations of their food experience? Would their dealings with United Supermarkets affect their critique of the food?
Stay tuned.