K-State Housing and Dining Services, headquartered in Pittman Hall, seeks to house and feed students every day as well as create a productive environment for them. Housing and dining recently won the Purple Apple Award for Best Property Management Company, and Director Derek Jackson seeks to continue providing students with the services they need.
“We have a dedicated staff that do their jobs well and help to create an environment in which K-State students can thrive,” Jackson said. “When you believe in what you do this job is very rewarding, I enjoy seeing students thrive into their full potential.”
Housing and dining has busy day-to-day operations, as its staff provides more than 10,000 meals per day as well as keeping the upkeep on dorm halls. Creating a safe environment is one of the main objectives of the housing division as its leadership wants students to feel secure and safe in their halls.
Overall, housing and dining seeks to provide safe and secure residence halls, nutritious meals, as well as being a good service for the students.
“One of our main goals is that we want the students to call this home,” Jackson said. “When a student heads back to campus, we want them to say they are going home.”
Jackson shared that creating a second home is beneficial to the K-State student as it creates a healthy environment for the students.
Housing and Dining Services is looking toward the future with the addition of the new residence hall, Wefald Hall. This new residence hall will be eight floors high and house up to 540 students. A new dining center is also under constructed which will serve the residence halls in the area and will continue to focus on made from scratch meals as well as provide extra space for multipurpose use.
Construction of Wefald, the new dining center, and renovations to Goodnow and Marlatt plan to be completed with construction and open in the spring of 2016.
Jackson notes how far dormitory living has come since Van Zile was constructed in 1926. Since Housing and Dining Services was added to K-State, its mission of providing students with care to they can accomplish all they need to academically hasn’t changed.
Content created by Collegian Media Group’s advertising staff.
