The City College of New York

To: Vincent Boudreau 

From:Brandon Calero

CC:Vincent Boudreau

Date:02/04/20 

Re: The Food Issues of CCNY

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The purpose of this memo is to bring attention to the high cost of the food in the CCNY cafeteria as well as how healthy it is.

Summery:

The food in the cafeteria is overpriced and not nutritious and inefficient which can be bad for students ability to study as they may not be able to afford it and it may not even be filling enough or they may not even have the time to purchase it negatively affecting their studies.

Discussion:

      Mr Bordreau I would like to discuss an issue with you that can be seen as a major problem in CCNY. As you are a social activist I would like to discuss a major problem for the low income students of ccny. This issue is the food in the cafetería. 

      I know you are aware of the problem as you began to make a food pantry for the students yet I feel that is not enough. Many students rely on the cafeteria as a way to get their food in order to have energy to continue through the day. Especially when their schedules do not allow them to have time and they have to quickly buy food. Yet the food has 3 problems being cost and health and efficiency.

     Primarily the cost of the food is excessive for the students attending the college. As city college tends to be diverse and ensure that students with low income may be given the same opportunities as those of higher income the cafeteria does not reflect this objective. The food pantry may offer food yet it tends to be canned food which would be difficult to prepare inside the campus. Yet the cafeteria food is very expensive so it would not be an ideal for when lower income students. This may have them begin to feel inferior as they need to rely on food given rather than eating the same food as the other students in the college. Also it makes it harder for students who may not be low income yet have little pocket money to afford as well negatively affecting their studies because of hunger during the day and not having time to get food in other places.

Secondly comes the health of the food in the cafeteria. There are healthy options at the cafeteria but they tend to be more expensive than the other options. Most of the food could cost more than buying out and have a bland taste. The food can be oily and greasy or have little nutritional value and yet cost a lot in comparison. 

Lastly comes the efficiency of buying food at CCNY.  It is difficult to buy food in the cafeteria. Especially when there are many people attempting to buy food and you need to rush to class. The fact that there is only one cash register in the cafeteria does not help this issue. There are 2 extra areas for cash registers yet there is only a single one in operation making it difficult to buy food in a rush and causing many people to delay.

Recommendation:

Since I am only a student there are many difficulties in recommending solutions yet I have some ideas. Maybe working with small businesses will help alleviate some of the cost as well as make the food healthier. Also opening the other stations with cash registers in order to have people purchase food more efficiently by splitting the line. This may also help as it can be used to offer work based learning jobs to more students as well helping students who need such opportunities. If you may consider these recommendations and find your own solutions it may be helpful to many students attending CCNY. 

Memo Reflection

To begin we were assigned the task to write to the president of our college in order to bring to light the problems being faced in our school. In order to do this we created a memo that may highlight said issues. For my memo I decided to use food as the point of concern. It was because I felt that the food in our college needed improvement and I wrote the memo in order to attempt to ask for the issue to be resolved. The main purpose was to remedy the cost, health, and efficiency of the food served in CCNY. As I considered these issues as a major problem as I personally starve myself some days as I don’t have much time between classes and am running low on money. Doing this I learned many things about writing this type of piece.

Primarily I learned how to analyze what I am reading better than before. Using the technology we have access to I was able to research information I could use in the essay. I used the context of what I learned when reading about CCNY President Vincent Boudreu’s personal achievements to learn how he may view the world in order to develop the type of personality he may have, and how to convey the points in the memo more convincingly. This also helped me as it enabled me to practice rhetorical strategies in order to focus on the audience in question rather than a vague complaint to no one specific. This makes the arguments written more convincing to the person in question. This also helps assert my position and take advantage of the personal morals of the audience as well. Overall I was able to learn to write more accurately and clearly to my position and enforce more of the audience’s potential positions to enforce my own.

Secondly there was the drafting and peer review that assisted greatly in writing the memo. In the beginning I had no idea how to write the piece in the first place. It began resembling more of a letter rather than a memo to convey information. Yet reading others pieces helped me assemble a template to write the memo, and speaking to others helped me correct small errors I may have made. Being able to cooperate with my classmates helped in developing the necessary points to write the memo. It also helped make a template in my mind in order to properly write the necessary information in the correct order. This showed me the necessity of socializing in order to put out a product that is acceptable when writing something as simple as a memo.

To conclude this memo was a very useful activity that prepares us for the future. Besides the obvious fact that we may need to write memos in our future careers there are many other benefits from this. Understanding the audience and our own objectives help greatly in presenting points that require another’s support. This was a good learning experience which assisted greatly in developing my writing skills.