Trent University students frequenting the university’s Catharine Parr Traill College will find the downtown college and its amenities might have some differences to what they remember come the start of the academic year in September.

Sources informed Arthur earlier in August that the college’s longstanding foodservice provider, The Trend, would be subject to a number of changes for the coming school year. Multiple sources indicated that the cafe, which is located in Traill College’s Wallis Hall, would pivot to a staffless service model come September, in contrast to the conventional counter service-style model from previous years.

This the second time in as many years that the operation model of the Trend has shifted, since it moved last year from being independently licensed to Chartwells staffed. In response to a request for comment from Arthur, Trent’s Communications department confirmed that the Trend would be “shifting to a self-service model” for the academic year.

“The Trend will offer fresh food items with a self-service model. Snacks, cold beverages, sandwiches, and entrees will be available for purchase through smart vending. A self-service coffee and tea counter will also be available to students in the Trend,” according to Trent Communications. 

The Trend has been a part of Trent University—and a staple of Traill culture—since the 1968 completion of Katherine Wallis Hall.

For years, the Trend was one of the two remaining original college pubs—part of the campus foodservice network which predated the private takeover of Trent’s foodservice in the 1990s, first by Aramark, and then by Compass Group, who currently hold the foodservice contract for the university. 

With its closure, the only remaining campus pub to still provide foodservice will be Champlain college’s Ceilie. Lady Eaton’s Crawpaddie and Otonabee’s Cat’s Ass Pub have both long since closed, as has the former Jolly Hangman Pub, which was demolished between 2002 and 2003, when Peter Robinson College was sold by the university.

Like the now-defunct Planet North Bakery, once located in the university’s Symons Campus Athletic Centre, foodservice for the Trend was historically provided through local caterers and restaurateurs—such as BE Catering and the now equally-defunct Whistle Stop Cafe—prior to its incorporation into the Chartwells foodservice ecosystem.

The university said that food will now be available to purchase through “smart vending,” similar to through service changes made to the Symons campus Bata Bean in 2023, which turned the cafe into a “Frictionless Market,” meant to eliminate the need for a dedicated Chartwells staff member on-site to provide service to customers.

At the time of its renovation, the university touted the Bata Bean as “Canada's First Checkout-Free Store Powered by AI Computer Vision.” The university claimed that students using the new-and-(allegedly)-improved Bata Bean would simply have to download and register for the Boost app, provide payment information such as a credit card or student number with Trent Cash in debit, and “shop to your heart's content, and walk out – no more waiting!”

In reality, the following two years have seen the cafe remain consistently staffed by Chartwells employees whose job has been to act effectively as failsafes for when the automated system (frequently) fails, or when students have not registered for the Boost app but still wish to grab a coffee on their way to class.

Recent minutes from Trent’s Foodservice Advisory Committee detail the continued challenges with the ongoing deployment of “frictionless” services at the Bata Bean, as its operations were reviewed in June for re-deployment in the forthcoming school year. Minutes from the committee allege that the Bean is “operational” but now “staffed to support program enrolment” and “debit payment.” 

This follows a trend in foodservice locations on Symons campus adding “frictionless” or self-service kiosks to complement conventional foodservice operations. Renovations made this year to the Tim Hortons in Otonabee College have seen the addition of two self-order kiosks and prepaid mobile ordering.

Unlike service provided through the Boost app, such as that at the Bata Bean, these kiosks will not accept Trent cash.

In addition to the changes to foodservice at the downtown college, Traill will no longer provide dedicated spots in on-campus residential housing for first-year students after doing so for several years. 

“First-year students will be housed in residences on the Symons Campus in Peterborough and our Durham Campus in Oshawa, with graduate and family residence at Traill remaining fully operational for the 2025-26 academic year,” Trent communications told Arthur over email correspondence.

“First-year students will continue to be part of the Traill College community, including having the option to choose Traill as their college, attend Traill events, and be a part of life at the downtown campus.”

This decision appears to be a deciding factor in the Trend’s closure, with Trent’s Foodservice Advisory Committee meeting minutes making note that “The Trend at Traill College will not operate this year as there are no undergrad residents.”

Instead, the college will continue to provide dorm-style single and double residential rooms for graduate students and apartment-style units for graduate students with families, according to Trent’s Housing website.

Traill has a long history of review periods and changes to accompany the shifting economic tides of the University. In late 2006, the college was put under review to either be sold off or converted into a Graduate Studies facility (as originally reported in Arthur), and once again in 2016—this time with a focus on cultural and academic changes at Traill, but notably suggested “[Traill] should build a strong body of undergraduates in the college to enhance this source of revenue.”

In a letter to the editor at the time, former Trent President Leo Groarke further explained this suggestion, saying that “One consequence of the decision to remove undergraduate students from Traill was the removal of this source of revenue from the college (it was replaced by fees from graduate students, but graduate students pay $15 a year in college fees; undergraduate students pay $241).”

Undergraduate students now pay over $300 in college-related fees, including a $3.27 college pub fee.

According to Foodservice Advisory Committee meeting minutes, Traill isn’t the only college where the university and its foodservice provider are facing financial difficulties.

“With declining enrolment and more empty rooms, our budget is becoming VERY precarious,” a report from the committee’s Budget Working Group at their August 14th meeting reads. The minutes also note that construction currently underway on the Gzowski college dining hall “has fall [sic] far behind schedule,” with a new deadline for “Targeted completion in late September.”

As the University projects an operating deficit of $23.6 million despite $12 million in annual provincial funding for the next four years, Trent continues to move forward with “mitigating strategies” for its financial plan which the Board of Governors outlined in June.

In a request for comment from Arthur on the Trend changes, Trent Communications said “The Trend is a hub for life at Traill College and remains open for regular use by the Traill community and as a space for events.”

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