Powers pushes for Lothrop food

Board member Will Powers received the results from an online questionnaire about the… Board member Will Powers received the results from an online questionnaire about the possibility of food service in Lothrop Hall yesterday night.

More than 170 Lothrop students responded to the survey, with 96 percent of them saying they wanted a campus dining area placed in the empty room in the building’s lobby.

“Everyone knows I lived in Lothrop my freshman year, and I starved,” Powers said.

Most of the students who responded to the survey said that, if Pitt chooses to build a dining area in the building, they want it to accept meal blocks and dining dollars.

According to Powers, the empty room in Lothrop used to be a 7-Eleven that went out of business four years ago because it could not sell tobacco products in a student residence building.

Other possibilities for the empty room in Lothrop included a large aquarium and an art room.

One student response read: “I want food. Art is lovely, but you can’t eat it.”

Another read: “Anything for food.”

Powers said he had difficulty in trying to meet with the director of Housing and Food Services, Jim Earle, but he finally “stalked him at the food committee meeting.”

According to Powers, Earle told him that “[his] opinion was [his] opinion,” and that Powers would need to show him proof “beyond a shadow of a doubt” that Lothrop residents wanted food in the building.

“I don’t see how he can possibly deny a food service to Lothrop when 90 percent of the constituents responded that they wanted food,” said Powers, who will meet with Earle today at 3 p.m. to try to convince him to build a food area.