Ten dining concepts and a convenience store work together to create a vibrant retail dining scene in a facility that's become a campus hub.

The view of foodservice on Michigan State's campus continues to improve thanks to renovation projects like The Vista at Shaw, which transformed an outdated cafeteria into a chef-driven dining venue with a sustainability focus.

A thorough overhaul of a 40-year-old cafeteria brings a welcome change to a marketplace-style dining environment serving 3,000 customers a day and putting equipment on display in an open, fresh setting.

The Oviedo, Fla.-based, quick-serve chain, known for its chicken tenders and "Magoo's sauce" debuted this smaller, faster franchise concept at UCF's student union on the main campus.

An efficient, casual café bridges the university’s main and downtown campuses and forges a partnership with the local community through its comfortable environment and fresh, made-to-order fare.

Multiple microrestaurant platforms and neighborhood dining options offer customers menu variety, entertaining display cooking and a uniquely designed, energetic interior that promotes interactions within the college community.

Six microrestaurants expose customers to preparation techniques for various cuisines and give staff an opportunity to run their own establishments. As a result, dining services continues to make a significant contribution to the success of this $94.8 million multipurpose facility, earning the highest honor in FE&S' Facility Design Project of the Year competition.

Lessons Learned: Use food trucks to bring more diverse food offerings to customers in underserved areas, and stabilize or boost revenue during periods of renovation.

Six culinary labs, a restaurant/bar, a bakery café and a full catering operation or the conference center give culinary students an opportunity to learn their trade on state-of-the-art equipment situated on two lower floors and in a penthouse suite. 

Four years ago, the University of Texas (UT) at Austin embarked on a complete renovation project of its dining facilities and kitchens. The fourth and final phase, completed last year at Jester Second Floor Dining Room, helped seal the deal on the university's plans to create a more sustainable dining and meal preparation environment for students, faculty and staff.

The spending ability of this emerging demographic continues to evolve.

Multiple micro-restaurant platforms and neighborhood dining offer customers menu variety, entertaining display cooking and a uniquely designed, energetic interior that promotes interactions within the college community.

This dining hall's transformation features a customized version of Aramark's Fresh Food Company that allows notable variety, flexibility and dining transparency in its three self-contained pods, which serve as mini-kitchens.

Want to check out some of the most exiting things happening in foodservice today? Head back to college. Not to the classroom but to the cafeteria. One quick look around the dining facilities at leading schools large and small today confirms that they look nothing like your father's, mother's, or unless you're fresh out, even your own college cafeteria.

An independent liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine, Bowdoin College takes its motto, "The College and the Common Good," to heart in all departments, including and perhaps especially in dining services. Known for high quality that consistently lands it at or near the top of the Princeton Review's annual ranking of best college food, Bowdoin's dining program touts not only great eats but a pacesetting, comprehensive portfolio of sustainability initiatives as well.

The campus of the College of William & Mary (W&M) in Williamsburg, Va., is big on historic charm. Chartered in 1693 by King William III and Queen Mary II of England, it's the second oldest college in America, it touts the oldest college building in the United States, and its Colonial Campus section has been restored to its eighteenth century appearance. But it's also a modern, progressive campus in every sense, including its dining program, which stands out in part for its firm commitment to serving students with food allergies and other special dietary needs.

Nearly 40 percent of incoming UCLA freshmen in the 2010-2011 school year were Asian or Pacific Islanders, a core demographic that Peter Angelis, assistant vice chancellor for housing and hospitality services, felt wasn't being adequately served by the school's foodservice program. Students could always choose from a handful of Asian fusion dishes, but they weren't the authentic, home-style foods that those students craved and that so many others raised in culturally diverse Southern California were used to eating in the area's many ethnic restaurants.

Sales at the national burger chain restaurant in the University of California-Santa Barbara student union had been declining for years, so Director of UCen Dining Services Sue Hawkins decided to pull the plug and try something new. Burgers and fries were still in the cards, but Hawkins felt the time was right to kick that formula up a notch and tap into a growing sustainability movement at UCSB.

Big ideas are the order of the day at UMass Amherst Dining Services. How big? Within the past two years, the department twice propelled the University of Massachusetts flagship campus into the Guinness Book of World Records by producing both the world's largest sushi roll and a record-setting 4,010-pound stir fry. The school hosts the largest campus foodservice event in the nation with its annual Taste of UMass, which this year featured 70 food booths, entertainment, celebrity guest appearances, an "Ultimate Cupcake War", and UMass Idol and Dance Dance Revolution contests.

Demand for vegetarian and vegan items on campus continues to rise and most colleges and universities now incorporate a variety of meatless meal options into their menus. But the University of North Texas (UNT) in Denton has taken one big Texas-sized step further: Last fall, it opened Mean Greens, a dedicated vegan dining hall thought to be the first of its kind in the nation at a large public university.

From its broad sustainability initiatives to its designated peanut-sensitive dining hall, from its kosher meals to halal meat alternatives, and from its partnerships with celebrity chefs and the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) to its strong commitment to local and organic foods (40 percent of purchases), Stanford Dining has for many years and on many levels been on the cutting edge of campus feeding. Its new Arrillaga Family Dining Commons and Performance Dining program, however, take Stanford's knack for setting trends to new levels.

Referred to by students and staff alike as the cement bunker, the once state-of-the-art Gordon Commons dining hall on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus was clearly past its prime. Built in 1965 to serve as the primary dining facility for some 3,000 students housed in nearby residence halls, as well as the school's central commissary, Gordon was stodgy, old school and out of step with the UW's progressive, competitive flagship Big Ten campus atmosphere. Despite efforts over the years to keep up appearances, it was campus foodservice at its most stereotypical.

Located in picturesque Burlington, the University of Vermont (UVM) is a leader on many sustainability fronts: One of the first universities to end the sale of bottled water, UVM's Sodexo-operated dining program also touts extensive pre- and post-consumer recycling, trayless dining, composting of food scraps, a student-run organic garden, steadily increasing purchases of locally produced "real" foods, sustainable seafood, biodegradable disposables and a partnership that recycles nearly 200 gallons of used fryer oil into biofuel each month. In early 2011, the school added another important element to its sustainability program: Eco-Ware, a reusable takeout container initiative that, after

Themed, restaurant-style platform stations with an array of equipment provide maximum menu flexibility and offer students and faculty at this land-grant university a fresh, lively dining experience.

The addition of two instructional kitchens serving restaurants that are open to the public, as well as three other instructional kitchens, an amphitheater and a six-room hotel increased student enrollment, partnerships with local businesses and industry, and services for community members.

Six micro-restaurants expose Union South customers to preparation techniques for various cuisines and give staff an opportunity to run their own establishments.

Call for submissions recognizing commitments to sustainability. 

Before Renee Zonka was named as Dean of Kendall College, she had extensive experience as an off-premise caterer.

Pulling off a multimillion dollar renovation of a restaurant while it is still in operation is a feat in and of itself, but to accomplish this with no cooking equipment, only 50 seats to serve 5,000 customers daily and with only a 15 percent drop in sales seems unheard of.