November 25, 2008

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) student Lisa Hayashida has been selected to the Sodexo Campus Services student board of directors.

The Sodexo student board of directors is selected annually and is comprised of 15 students from Sodexo's campus service accounts across the country. Hayashida will have the opportunity to represent UAB and its students in a national forum designed to inspire fun and creative activities that students can take back and utilize in their campus dining facilities.

Hayashida, of Huntsville, is a third year student and pre-nursing major at UAB, a resident assistant for Blount Hall and a member of Alpha Gamma Delta Sorority. Hayashida has been assisting campus restaurants with various on-campus promotional activities aimed at encouraging student participation since 2007. This will be her first year on the student board. Since September, Hayashida has traveled to Nashville and Hilton Head, S.C., to meet with the heads of Sodexo Campus Services and the other student board representatives.

"It has been great getting to meet people from other schools around the country," Hayashida said. "This experience has given me the opportunity to see how food preferences differ regionally and to learn about and create different event ideas that I can bring back and help implement at UAB.

"Food brings people together," Hayashida said. "I look forward to bringing ideas back to UAB to help improve student opinions of campus dining, increase meal plan retention and overall help make students happy on campus."

Previously Ivie Freeman, a communications major, was selected to represent UAB on the student board from fall 2005 through spring 2007.