By Selena Burke, News Correspondent
Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen beat Bojangles’ Famous Chicken n’ Biscuits and Raising Canes Chicken Fingers in the student survey for a new vendor in the Curry Student Center.
The Student Government Association’s (SGA) Vice President of Student Services Timothy LePage announced during Monday’s meeting that the difference in votes between the first and second choice was between 25 and 40, “depending on how you looked at it.”
LePage said, “I looked at it four different ways, so there would be no questions asked,” and that SGA will recommend the university’s administration move forward in pursuing Popeye’s for the CSC.
The administration asked Chartwells for a list of viable options to consider instead of Chick-fil-A and passed those options on to SGA. Northeastern’s Director of Communications Renata Nyul said about 1,500 students participated in the survey.
Popeyes was one of three chicken restaurants to be considered after the senate voted 31-5 to remove Chick-fil-A from consideration for the Curry Student Center renovation plans because of controversy surrounding their donation history. Chick-fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy started the WinShape foundation, which donates money to marriage and family groups against same-sex marriage, according to equalitynow.org, a LGBT rights website.
“We believe that these vendors were suggested to provide students with a similar option to what the previously considered vendor, that the administration stopped working with, would have provided,” LePage said in an email to The News.
SGA passed a Sense of the Senate, stating all current and future vendors should be reviewed by the Office of Student Affairs “to ensure that they do not participate in any sort of actions that may harm or discriminate against community members or their values.”
When considering the new vendors, LePage said an SGA evaluation found none of them to be in conflict with Northeastern values.
“SGA did not receive any comments from students expressing concern over any of these three vendors related to values and otherwise throughout our surveying and we are unaware of any questionable practices by the vendor that we are recommending,” LePage said.
Nyul said the administration also presented the three options to members of the Graduate Student Government, who did not take issue with any of the choices.
According to Nyul, reviews of current vendors are still under way.
