Psychology professor Cara Tan told Mt. SAC’s Board of Trustees on March 9 about a student who went to get food on campus and found that there was a hair in their cup of pudding.

Tan added that this student had encountered this before.

“They had told me that the cost of food has increased and the quality of food has decreased,” Tan said. “This is important because I know this student has really suffered and works really hard to be an incredible student. To pay money to get food that they couldn’t eat because there was hair in it.”

Tan said it was not acceptable for this to happen and that they saw this particular incident just weeks after coming into their position as the Pride Center’s faculty coordinator.

Another individual came forward after Tan to speak on how expensive this food was, compared to the campus’ prices for the food.

They mentioned that the school’s food quality has gone down after the school stopped producing its own food. This individual bought a cup of pudding with lint in it, and had received a $5 small cup of mango that was still raw. It appeared green and white.

Still giving the food a third chance, this individual bought a different pudding and saw the aforementioned hair in their pudding.

The problems were not restricted to the pudding and fruit offerings, however.

They went on to describe the sandwiches as also being a mixed bag, with one of the better sandwiches – a $7 croissant sandwich – which they described as “ham and a lot of lettuce and some cheese.”

While most sandwiches are in the $5 price range, this individual said that most of the food tastes old or bad. They later added that buying two sandwiches and a cup of pudding set them back $22.

This is not the first time that the college has had issues with its offerings on campus.

Mountie Cafe was closed on Sept. 21, 2018 due to a vermin infestation before being reopened on Oct. 1, 2018. The inspector cited over 150 rodent droppings for its closure, and had found a few droppings in the cafe just months prior.