Sodexo did not fool us.

Last Monday, Marquette Student Government responded to student concerns about Marquette’s food service provider by facilitating a “conversation with Sodexo.”

Unfortunately, the jargon used by Sodexo stood in the way of real dialogue and left major questions unanswered.

Sodexo had a lot of nerve. Our “conversation” began with a 20-minute PowerPoint presentation, essentially a commercial for the company.

A range of students and organizations prepared for the forum came expecting to be taken seriously.

Given that the questions asked were simple and fair, Sodexo’s lack of authentic answers was especially frustrating.

You know the cliché: If I had a dollar for every time Sodexo responded to a question by using the word “journey,” citing an obscure award or talking endearingly about the Sodexo “family,” I’d be loaded.

But as silly as Sodexo’s responses were, they were responses to serious and well thought-out student inquiries, which made them insulting. Sodexo dismissed labor grievances, attributing them to union-run “smear campaign(s).”

They could only provide a ballpark figure (“just under 10”) when asked the starting wage of a Sodexo employee at Marquette, and offered this answer only when prompted a second time, preferring to talk instead about “average wage” (a higher figure).

It is exactly this type of “corporate mumbo jumbo,” and not at all the work of Sodexo employees on campus, with which students take issue.

The answers we got from Sodexo representatives were hardly more comforting than the evasions. For example, when asked about the extent of its involvement in the prison industry, Sodexo cited its “passion” for providing services in and operating private prisons (ignoring the obviously questionable legitimacy of for-profit prisons).

Marquette representatives also let students down.

Ask anyone in attendance for a highlight and you’ll hear about the moment when Marquette administrators of the Sodexo contract failed to answer a simple question: Where does the money from my university-mandated meal plan go? (e.g., how much to Sodexo International? To workers?).

They could not even tell us whether Marquette profits from student meal swipes. Marquette said its representatives “don’t track that.”

This was unsettling. Marquette, if you refuse to admit me to this university unless I agree to buy one of your $1,000+ meal plans, can you at least tell me where my money’s going? Or if Marquette profits? No one could.

Most intolerable is the assumption that we will be silenced by their inadequate responses. We expect that Sodexo can respond to student concerns about food taste, but its commitments to trimming costs, increasing transparency or addressing serious social justice issues all seem less likely after last week.

If the forum is any cue, we can expect distraction in the form of surface-level improvements that miss the point of students’ real concerns.

Sodexo, you didn’t fool us — your answers were brimming with fluff, taglines and buzzwords, and generally lacked substance.

For now, we will continue to work with Sodexo, but their unwillingness or inability to participate in real dialogue has only added to our growing list of grievances with this provider.

Marecca Vertin is a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences and a member of JUSTICE.