Commons Dining Center enhancements for 2022-2023 academic year
To improve the student dining experience and offer a higher level of service, Vanderbilt Campus Dining is implementing a number of upgrades to the Commons Dining Center this academic year. These include:
All-you-care-to-eat dining
New for the 2022-2023 academic year, Commons now offers an all-you-care-to-eat dining experience for students, faculty, and staff. Rather than building a meal with a la carte options, guests can enter the serving area and choose whatever they like. Options this year include Magnolia & Co deli sandwiches, Mexican-inspired Taqueria dishes, and the return of the popular Crafted Flatbreads brick oven station. To facilitate this change, upgraded entry turnstiles have been installed at both ends of the servery, allowing students to enter from either the Commons Center Atrium or the Commons Dining Room. To enter, students can use a Commodore Card, mobile Commodore Card, or the new optional VisionPass biometric scanner system (details below).
Once a student ‘swipes’ into the serving area, they can leave and re-enter as many times as they wish within a 45 minute period. Re-entry swipes within this 45 minute period are subject to a 5 minute ‘cooldown’ period between swipes.
Continuous service
Commons Dining Center, in addition to all other residential dining halls (Zeppos, Rothschild, and E. Bronson Ingram) will offer continuous dining service from open until close. This means that food will be available continuously between 7am-8pm weekdays, and 9am-8pm on weekends. During non-peak dining times, and resets between breakfast/lunch and lunch/dinner, continental and/or lighter options will be offered. For a full list of locations, hours, and current menu offerings, visit vu.edu/menus.
VisionPass Biometric Scanners
In support of the new all-you-care-to-eat model at Commons Dining Center, Campus Dining has partnered with Card Services to install VisionPass – a new, voluntary program that enables students, faculty and staff to use unique biometric data to quickly and securely enter residential dining halls.
After completing a brief enrollment process, students, faculty and staff can gain access to Commons Dining Center and charge meals to their account simply by standing in front of the face scanner located at the turnstiles near the cashier counter. Currently available exclusively at Commons, additional scanners may be added to other Dining Services locations based on student feedback.
Registration for VisionPass will be available from Monday, August 22 through Friday, August 26 10:00am-1:00pm in the Commons Center Atrium. For more information, including frequently asked questions, visit vanderbi.lt/visionpass.
Located on the Martha Rivers Ingram Commons, the Commons Dining Center is the primary dining hall for first-year Vanderbilt students, but is open to all members of the Vanderbilt community. For more information about Vanderbilt Campus Dining, visit vu.edu/dining.