Dartmouth Dining Station Reopens with OU Certification

The Pavilion, one of ten dining stations in Dartmouth’s Class of 1953 Commons, is certified kosher by the Orthodox Union as of this fall, reports the student newspaper The Dartmouth. Two full-time mashgichim were hired, the kitchen was koshered, and equipment that couldn’t be koshered was replaced. A vegetable-washing sink was also installed. Dining director Jon Plodzik told The Dartmouth in an email statement that planning began in January and took about eight months to complete. Dartmouth Dining, the Rohr Chabad Center, and the Roth Center for Jewish Life all played a role; Chabad executive director Rabbi Moshe Gray was credited as a key organizer.
“This was a campus process with all of the groups … fully involved in initial conversations and in supporting this initiative,” he wrote, adding that Chabad executive director Rabbi Moshe Gray “was instrumental in gathering the parties and getting conversations going.”
This change was a long way coming In the late nineties, Jewish and Muslim students formed a committee to advocate for expanded kosher and halal dining options. Dartmouth opened The Pavilion as a joint kosher-halal dining facility (many Muslims consider kosher food to be halal) in Thayer Hall (now Class of 1953 Commons). In 2015, Orthodox students circulated an online petition for the dining area to receive Orthodox certification, which received 716 signatures. A committee was convened in September 2016, and The Pavilion began offering pre-packaged Orthodox-certified food. This arrangement ended around the OVID-19 pandemic, William Jewett Tucker Center for Spiritual and Ethical Life director and Chaplain reverend Nancy Vogele told The Dartmouth; she was also part of the campus team that advocated for the Pavilion’s transition to OU certification.
Gray told the Dartmouth said he continued advocating for a change in certification over multiple College administrations. Conversations accelerated after College President Sian Leah Beilock took office, he said.
“Once the College said, ‘Yes, we want to do this,’ it was a pretty smooth process,” Gray said.
Sophomore Jake Goldman told the Dartmouth that The Pavilion he “basically was living on protein bars and bags of chips” for the two weeks of freshman orientation last year, and that the new OU certification played a role in his decision to return this year.
“I don’t think it’s malicious,” Goldman said about the previous lack of Orthodox certification. “I think it’s a little bit more on the side of ignorance. I just think people don’t exactly know anything about different standards of kashrut.”