Food options and availability during holidays, point-to-dollar value and "real food" on campus appear to be the most important dining issues for students, according to the results of the Student Union PULSE survey and Student Union President Herbie Rosen '12 in an interview with the Justice.

Last week, the Student Union sent out the PULSE survey in order to gather student feedback on various topics at the University. The survey was composed of five sections: dining, housing, student life, Student Union and a "what else," where students could give additional feedback not covered in the previous sections.

According to Rosen, 448 students participated in the dining survey, which is about 13 percent of the undergraduate student body. Another major survey was sent to the student body last year, but only 120 to 130 students participated and many of the responses received were very vague, said Rosen. This year's survey, said Rosen, allowed the Union to gather more "tailored" results to each category.

In the dining section, students were asked to mark how often they used certain services and facilities and when. Participants could also rate their satisfaction with each service and in some sections provide comments.

According to the survey results, students were most dissatisfied with food options and availability during holidays and breaks, excluding summer break and winter intercession, and point-to-dollar value. In addition, out of the initiatives the Union has started to work on, "real food" on campus ranked as the most important, and advertising ranked as the least important.

"Real food," according to the survey, refers to "local [and] community-based, fair, ecologically sound, and humane" foods.

In addition, Rosen mentioned the idea of expanding kosher food options to the Usdan Café and the Usdan Boulevard.

"That's not off the table yet," said Rosen. "We're going to look into it." Currently, there are no hot kosher food options in Usdan.

According to the results, the most frequented dining area is the Provisions on Demand Market in the Usdan Student Center, followed by Usdan Café and Einstein Bros. Bagels. Students indicated that they visit the Village Provisions on Demand Market, Quiznos, the Stein, the Faculty Club and Java City Schneider less than once a week.

The survey also asked students during which hours they would most likely go to various dining locations if they were all open from 8 to 2 a.m.

Students said they would most likely visit Usdan Café between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. and between 4 and 10 p.m. during the week. During the weekends, students said they would go between 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 to 10 p.m. The most popular Usdan Boulevard hours for students on the survey were from 11 a.m. to midnight during the week and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. to midnight on the weekends.

Students said they would visit Sherman Dining Hall more often between both 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. and 5 and 9 p.m. during the weekdays. During weekends, the most popular time slots were 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 5 to 9 p.m.

Students said they would most frequently go to the P.O.D. Market from 8 to 2 a.m. on both weekdays and weekends.

According to Rosen, these times are when at least 20 percent of survey takers indicated they would go to these dining areas.

Rosen said that he will present the results at the University Committee meeting today, as well as the Senate adhoc dining committee to work on possible initiatives.

Rosen said he will also want to negotiate with Aramark and Dining Services to see "what [they] can get done."

"We started discussing this last semester. It was right before the transition of the summer, and so not much headway was made, but the conversation was started," said Rosen. "The great thing is Dining Services and the University are aware that we're curious about this."

In a phone interview with the Justice, Senator for the Class of 2014 Ricky Rosen said that he thought the survey was a "really good idea."

"For once the Student Union is engaging the students and communicating with the students," he said. Ricky Rosen said that he will examine students' main concerns and look at possible ideas to be implemented.