UConn Adds Halal Offerings to Campus Dining Hall

April 13, 2006

Source: The Daily Campus

http://www.dailycampus.com/media/storage/paper340/news/2006/04/13/News/Towers.Adds.Muslim.Offerings-1851041.shtml?norewrite200604181751&sourcedomain=www.dailycampus.com

On April 13, 2006 The Daily Campus reported, "A new food station was opened at Towers Dining Hall April 3 to meet the dietary needs of Muslim students.

According to Towers Chef Blair Davis, the station provides a meat, vegetable and starch at each meal. He said the station was set to be a permanent fixture at the dining hall... According to [Faleh] Ibrahim [a graduate student at the University of Connecticut], dietary rules for Muslims are very similar to kosher rules for people of the Jewish faith. He said many Muslim students ate food prepared at the kosher section at Towers Dining Hall before Halal was started... Dennis Pierce, director of Dining Services, said that the initiative to start Halal came in the form of an e-mail sent early this summer. An incoming freshman student who was Muslim asked for alternatives for meals. Dining Services began to look into purchasing Halal food.

According to Regis Synnott, associate director of Dining Services, finding a distributor was somewhat difficult. Dole & Bailey, a Massachusetts based distributor, was chosen because they were able to quickly begin supplying meat, enabling UConn to start up Halal this semester."