Dining unveils various new programs at March town hall

Photo by Emma Quirk ’26

Dining went over many new programs with Senators on March 10, 2026 during a town hall, answering questions about food preparation and disposal.

BY SARAH ANN FIGUEROA ’28

STAFF WRITER

The SGA Senate town hall on March 10 hosted three senior members of the dining staff at Mount Holyoke, who shared exciting new additions coming to the Mount Holyoke dining experience. 

Adorning their signature white chef jackets embroidered with the College’s logo, Shawn Kelsey, associate director of culinary operations, Peter Haas, director of dining services, and Dino Giordano, campus executive chef, all attended Senate for the monthly town hall meeting.

Beginning with what has already been implemented, Kelsey announced the creation of the Dining Ambassador Program. Inspired by the language tables that used to exist in individual dining halls before the creation of centralized dining in 2018, the purpose of this program is to bring meaningful, authentic meals to dining. The dining ambassadors are current students of Mount Holyoke College who represent the diverse communities that exist on campus. They are meant to be accessible for every student to voice their concerns and feedback for dining.

Through these ambassadors, dining staff will learn more about how the dining program can be improved to better serve the needs of our campus. Note that this is not a replacement for preexisting ways of communicating with dining. The QR codes posted around Blanchard Hall are still valid, as well as the MHC dining email, dining@mtholyoke.edu.

Kelsey addressed that everyone at dining really appreciates the positive feedback they receive from the community. “It does genuinely mean a lot to us,” he said. He further added that any high praise given gets printed out and posted around the different stations in the dining hall for staff to see, creating a motivating and encouraging environment.

One of the first dining ambassadors is Cedar Xiao ’29. In an interview with Mount Holyoke News about her perspective on the new program, Xiao said “I feel like I'm really contributing to my community.” Another major component of the dining ambassador role is to provide dining with new recipe suggestions, and Xiao shared how her experience with that aspect of the role has been. She had received feedback from many of her fellow Chinese international students that the meals served at the Wok station are too sweet compared to how they are traditionally made. The fix to this problem isn’t as simple as adding less sugar, as all recipes served in dining are prepared months in advance, and chefs must follow them to the ounce. 

“What I got to do was I found recipes online for other universities in China, and I translated that into English,” Xiao said. “We just did a taste testing yesterday afternoon for more authentic Chinese recipes.” Having invited her friends to provide feedback, many approved of the new recipe.

Hopefully, students can anticipate the quality and authenticity of dishes served in dining to increase with this program. Recounting this taste testing session during the town hall, Giordano noted, “When we get to sit down and eat a meal together, it’s a wonderful and meaningful thing.” If anyone would like to join the dining ambassador program, they should reach out to Shawn Kelsey at kelsey@mtholyoke.edu.

Anyone who has been in the dining hall this semester will have noticed the new dish drop, which was changed over the 2025-26 winter break. Dining shared that the new dish return system is a major improvement for those on the other side of it. 

“It's really helping out the dish room staff,” Haas said. “They are smiling, and the floors are clean, and they're not getting piles of dishes.” It was noted that there are a few technical components in the back of the house that are not yet operational, which may explain why there has been a buildup of dishes during the popular meal time rushes.

One student during the town hall brought up how many students with mobility aids have expressed that the new dish return system is not accessible to them. Kelsey said that the new dish drop is compliant to the Americans with Disabilities Act, however, they are willing to talk with individuals facing challenges to see what they can do to improve the system. 

In terms of other back of house updates, the kitchen now features a new walk-in fridge. This allows for better, more sustainable food storage, and will open up more opportunities for different meals. The expansions to Blanchard Hall in 2018 were not designed with enough storage space for food. As a result, a large refrigerated truck has been parked in the back of the building on weekends to store dairy, produce, and other highly perishable items. With the new fridge, the truck will no longer be needed.

The last new addition to Dining Services is the Grab & Go donation system. Uneaten leftovers from the Grab & Go stations across campus are now being shared with the Food Recovery Network, and sent to Kate’s Kitchen in Holyoke to be distributed. As of March 10, 34 meals have been donated already. These leftovers will be picked up every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Kelsey, Haas and Giordano also unveiled many things that are to come to Dining Services in the near future, the first being a collaboration with the Miller-Worley Center for the Environment. At the Frances Perk cafe, located in the Williston-Memorial library, students will soon be able to check out and return USEFULL cups. Any drink that is ordered with a USEFULL cup will come with a 15 cent discount.

Following spring break, raw fish will enter the sushi program once a week. The first raw fish included will be Ahi Tuna. The program will start slowly and gradually be built upon. Ahi Tuna will be included in premade poke bowls on Tuesdays and premade sushi rolls on Wednesdays, alternating every other week, to be served at both the Sushi station and the Grab & Go stations. 

Another announcement that had many Senators excited was the new smoothie bar to come to the Cochary Pub & Kitchen. The bar will replace the espresso machine, and operate in the same fashion as everything else in the Pub does. Smoothies will be available for purchase via cash, credit or dining dollars. It will be a build your own style experience, with a wide variety of fresh fruit, vegetables, yogurts, smoothie bases and other toppings to choose from. 

Finally, a small yet significant piece of news to come out of this town hall is that food waste across campus is reducing overall, and Dining Services will be doing what they can to continue this trend. It was disclosed that they use an AI program centered around food waste management solutions known as Leanpath to track post consumer food waste leaving our college, and will be taking the usage of it a step further. 

With the Leanpath Spark Program, all of the food coming off of students' plates will be weighed in real time, as workers in the dish room dump all uneaten food into a bin atop a scale. A screen that will be installed in the dish drop area will display and live update the scale’s measurements. Leanpath’s AI will compare the numbers with important metrics, such as how many people could have been fed with the food that has been wasted.

Though there may be something contradictory about using artificial intelligence, a known energy waster and massive consumer of resources, to track food waste in our college, dining made an effort to focus on the positive aspects of this program. 

“It's the right thing to do,” Kelsey stated. “That's why our mission is to reduce that food waste. Not because it's going to save the college money, but because it's the right thing to do. It's something that we can do as a community to help with the global warming issue that we're dealing with.” 

Quill Nishi-Leonard ’27 contributed fact-checking.

The College introduces Google AI chat feature, Gemini

Graphic by Mari Al Tayb ’26

By Emma Quirk ’26 & Genevieve Zahner ’26

News and Photos Editor | News Editor

On Aug. 20, the College announced the introduction of Gemini AI, Google’s AI chat application in an MHC: This Week email. Gemini, Google’s AI chat application, can be used “to explore ideas, draft or summarize writing, create content and images, and support research or creative projects.” In a follow-up email, this information was reiterated, with a reminder for students to “follow the guidelines set by faculty in their individual courses, and be transparent about the origin and process used for their submitted work.” Additionally, there was a note for all users to follow the Mount Holyoke College Guidelines for the Ethical Use of Generative AI.

These guidelines exist “to ensure the ethical, secure, and responsible use of AI, fostering a culture of critical engagement with technology in line with the College’s mission and strategic vision as we navigate these changes as a community.” They go into detail about various aspects of AI usage, including ethical use, culture of critical engagement, professional integrity and responsibility and data privacy and security. At the bottom of the page, it states that ChatGPT was used to create these guidelines, with “substantial editing” by Mount Holyoke faculty and staff.

LITS has been at the forefront of investigations about AI usage, as well as the integration of Gemini and other generative AI tools on campus. The LITS Advisory Committee, College Compliance Committee, Leadership Council, a faculty forum, and the Student Government Association Senate were all part of the decision to introduce Gemini. However, because of the focus on “the foundational technology environment, privacy, and information security of the College, I, as Chief Information Officer, made the decision,” Alex Wirth-Cauchon told Mount Holyoke News.

Multiple factors influenced this decision, including issues of privacy, equity and educational access. A significant concern was about AI tools mining information. “Sharing non-public information ... with such tools puts the community’s privacy and personal information security at risk,” Wirth-Cauchon said. “Our contract with Google prevents Gemini from using our information to train their model, advertising, or other uses.”

This became more pressing when Google started allowing college students to freely access Gemini for one year. However, this access “is not covered by the College’s contract that provides limits to what Google can do with the data submitted to Gemini,” Wirth-Cauchon said. “Additionally, we were concerned about the inequity created in a year when charges would begin for those accounts.”

There was interest from faculty and staff to have access to generative AI, either for course materials or various work as part of the College. Wirth-Cauchon stated, “Granting access to Gemini addressed this need without additional cost to the College, those departments, or the staff in those departments.”

In an email from President Danielle Holley on Sept. 3, she announced that there would be an AI Working Group sponsored by Provost Lisa Sullivan and Wirth-Cauchon. This committee will be split into sub-groups, including one connected with the Association of American Colleges and Universities — AAC&U — Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum. The AI Working Group will have faculty, staff and student members. Wirth-Cauchon said the purpose of this group is to “help us to broaden and deepen the community’s critical engagement with the impact of generative AI for the mission of the College.”

Vanessa Rosa, co-chair of critical race and political economy and associate professor in Latine studies, is part of Mount Holyoke’s AAC&U Institute on AI team. She attended a conference hosted by AAC&U over the summer, where she learned more about AI and about the Institute. The Institute is essentially a year-long mentorship program. “Each institution puts together a team that will go through this kind of structured program to really think through AI for their campus,” Rosa said in an interview with MHN. “Who is Mount Holyoke? What is our mission? What are our values? And how do we need to be thinking very carefully about AI in relation to those things.”

She spoke about the importance of learning about AI to understand it. “I think it's our responsibility to be educated and understand what AI is, what it does, and to interrogate what we don't know yet,” Rosa said. “My major concerns around AI are intellectual property, equity, [and] the environment.”

Angie Gregory, sustainability program manager for the Miller Worley Center for the Environment, is also focused on the environmental impacts of AI. Gregory recognizes that there are ways for AI to be useful, but encourages people to do their own research to learn about the consequences. Looking at studies from CNBC, University of Massachusetts Amherst and the United Nations can put the impacts into perspective, from “land use acquisition and development for the buildings that need to house these servers, to the amount of water that's used to cool these servers.”

“I think we as consumers of these technologies need to think about what the demand side is saying to those industries,” Gregory said. “So we can reduce our demand side and be intentional with when and how we use it.”

Despite some of the harmful consequences for people and the environment, she is not pessimistic about the future. “It can all feel really overwhelming and outside of our control,” Gregory said. “[But] we are on this campus together in an enclosed, kind of tight community where we have the opportunity to connect with all these individuals in real time ... I think there’s opportunity in that.”

Alex Moskowitz, an assistant professor of English at Mount Holyoke College, spoke in an interview with Mount Holyoke News about his thoughts of where AI fits into an English classroom, stating, “One of the things that distinguishes an English classroom at Mount Holyoke from an English classroom at other institutions like UMass, is that we have really, really small classes.” Most English classes at Mount Holyoke are capped between 16-18 students, creating a more personalized learning environment, as well as being primarily discussion based learning models. “One of the things you can do here is … you read the text, you come up with your ideas, and you speak about them in class, and you speak about them with your classmates, you speak about them with your professors. This is the work that is possible here. AI has no role,” Moskowitz said.

Moskowitz also spoke on how generations of knowledge for English students comes from reading, writing and discussion. He says speaking about literature with classmates offers new perspectives and brings up new ideas one never considered before, and AI prevents students from learning anything new. He additionally spoke about his policy in the classroom surrounding AI, and how he personally considers it to be a form of plagiarism. “I tell students they are not allowed to use it for whatever purpose … I want you to learn this thing, and you can't learn it through the use of AI … So it doesn't serve a pedagogical purpose in my courses, therefore don't use it,” he said.

Moskowitz also commented on the idea of Mount Holyoke trying to become more carbon neutral with efforts such as the geothermal project, but then adopting AI tools which are known to use immense amounts of energy. “Go look up the articles about what those data centers do to the communities that they're in, they're incredibly destructive, like the air quality, the water quality, everything. They destroy the immediate surroundings. And those communities are often Black and brown communities where those data centers are built,” he said.

Moskowitz wrapped up by encapsulating his philosophy on AI by saying, “There's more I could say, but there are these political and ethical and environmental reasons that AI is really, really deeply problematic, and so I'll say to students, don't use it, because pedagogically, it doesn't make sense.”

Mount Holyoke News also reached out to Mara Breen, a cognitive scientist and professor of psychology, to ask about how fields such as hers who use computational models of AI are working around the development of generative models. “So starting from the 1970s we had this term AI, artificial intelligence. Now what did it mean in 1971, [is] probably a little bit different from how we conceptualize it today,” she said, drawing the distinction between newer models such as ChatGPT and models used in labs. “I use various machine learning algorithms, which some people would call AI, but that's very different from these generative AI models like LLMs.”

Breen also spoke to how these models are used as learning tools. “As a cognitive scientist, I'm deeply interested in computational models as a tool of study, where we say, here's what we know humans do. What do computational models do?”

She explained how AI has a place in her classroom as computational models, however her thoughts on generative models in the classroom are slightly different, stating “The value of a scientific paper is not the abstract, right? Usually it's not. We're not reading a paper because of the abstract, we're saying, okay, but how did they operationalize their variables? What is the method that they used? What were their results? How did they interpret it?”

She also emphasized that the “potential benefit is not worth the cost” of using a generative model for simple tasks such as searching for an old email or redesigning a class.

Breen approaches AI in her classroom through education, and explaining to students how AI works and what exactly it is by comparing it to neural networks and models to help students grasp what she means. Additionally, she explains to students how the models they use in her field are helpful for offloading specific mathematical or experimental tasks, such as marking boundaries in research, but also teaching them about the harms of generative AI such as the labor exploitation and energy used in data centers. “We make the joke that [the brain] runs on, you know, coffee and Flaming Hot Cheetos, and GPT runs on all of the electricity in Texas,” she said.

Breen advises that before using AI, people should “make sure it's a reasoned choice,” and not to use it as a replacement for Google, or doing research by yourself, and to get educated on what exactly AI is and the effects.

Madeleine Diesl ’28 contributed fact checking.

Students celebrate the start of the academic year at Nightfest

Photo by Emma Quirk ’26
Myat Nandi Kyaw ’28, Hailey Brooks ’27, Manu Ribas ’26, Christine Niu ’27 serving popcorn at Nightfest.

By Emma Quirk ’26

News Editor & Photos Editor

Students celebrated the first weekend back on campus with friends and peers at Nightfest. Hosted by the Office of Student Involvement and the Student Government Association on Sept. 6, the event was advertised as including games, music, and more.

While Nightfest was originally going to be held on Skinner Green, it was moved indoors due to rain and a thunderstorm watch in the area. However, in contrast to the gloomy weather, Blanchard Hall was lively, with students of all class years milling about. The entire first floor was filled with people and tables that offered various foods and activities. On one side of the floor was snacks, with popcorn cones, cotton candy sticks, and a “make your own teabag” station. While the Cochary Pub & Kitchen was open, it remained quiet throughout Nightfest as students enjoyed the goodies provided by the event.

On the other side of the floor, students could get their face painted or take a picture at the photo booth. The line for photos extended across the entire length of the first floor, as students waited to pose with props. Between the tables, groups of students sat and stood in circles, playing games, eating their treats, chatting with one another, and taking in the activity around them.

The Great Room boasted glow-in-the-dark mini golf. Lively music was playing, and the room was dim except for the golf course and glow sticks that students waved and wore as necklaces. All in all, Nightfest was a vibrant celebration to finish out the first week of classes.

Madeleine Diesl ’28 contributed fact-checking.