Multiple dorms on Ohio University's campus offer kitchens for students to use, but some come with mandatory fees and training sessions.
When it comes to picking a dorm, some Ohio University students consider factors such as location, renovated facilities, air conditioning and quiet hours policies.
Other students, however, consider if the dorm has a kitchen.
“I chose to live in Bryan (Hall) for the kitchen. I missed the home-cooked meals,” Jessie Robinson, a sophomore studying electrical engineering and integrated media, said.
Residents in Bryan Hall, Hoover House, Voigt Hall and the new South Green dorms — the Carr-Sowle and Tanaka-Luchs complexes — all have access to kitchens, but the type of access varies in each dorm.
In the older residential halls, access to the student kitchen requires a membership to a “kitchen club,” which can include fees each semester and instructional sessions about kitchen rules.
In Bryan Hall, residents in the club must attend an orientation session, pay $15 dues each semester and sign a usage contract in order to get a key to the kitchen, Robinson said.
However, residents of the new South Green dorms aren't required to pay a fee and only need their swipe cards to access the kitchens in their dorms, Evan Leonard, a residential assistant at Luchs Hall, said.
Leonard said residents can get into the kitchens from 6:30 a.m. until 11 p.m. and are also allowed to escort other students to use kitchens. RAs can access the kitchens at any time, he said.
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Peter Trentacoste, executive director of Housing and Residence Life, said the newly-built kitchens are equipped with technology that the department hopes “will provide the same level of accountability” the kitchen clubs offer in the older halls.
The kitchens in the Tanaka-Luchs and Carr-Sowles complexes have cameras, new appliances and lights that automatically shut off. Trentacoste said Housing and Residential Life plans to renovate all the other dorm kitchens by upgrading the kitchens in Hoover, Voigt and Bryan with the technology used in the new halls.
Trentacoste said the kitchens in Hoover, Voigt and Bryan halls are “holdovers from a time when kitchens were more prevalent in residence halls,” but in the last several years, the interest in dorm kitchens has started to come back.
“We are seeing more demand and interest in community kitchens, so we are adding them whenever we can to our residence halls,” Trentacoste said.
The university plans to add a kitchen to Jefferson Hall as part of its upcoming renovation, Trentacoste said.
The kitchens in the new dorms come with full oven ranges with hoods, countertops for preparation and microwaves.
Leonard said the hall directors and hall councils in the new dorms are planning their budgets to provide cooking utensils for students to use, as well as some seating in the kitchens. In Luchs Hall, for example, the kitchens have pots and pans of various sizes and plastic utensils.
Leonard said the new dorms don’t have any refrigerators because the residential staff decided they don’t want to encourage storing food in communal places.
However, in the older dorms, members of the kitchen club have access to fridges, but can only store items for a week, Robinson said.
All residents who use the kitchens in their residence halls must abide by the university’s student kitchen sanitation guidelines, which cover food safety and keeping the kitchens clean. The Environmental Health and Safety department completes regularly scheduled inspections of the kitchens, Trentacoste said.
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