VERBUM ULTIMUM: We Don’t Buy It
By The Dartmouth Editorial Board
Published on Friday, March 4, 2011
Campus dialogue this Winter has centered on particularly heavy issues, from the intractable problems of sexual assault and binge drinking to rising concern about the administration’s approach to diversity. As the term draws to a close, however, we find ourselves alarmed about one of those “little things” — an issue that might seem insignificant in a broader context, but that has an undeniably meaningful impact on our daily lives. Sometimes it is the little things that count, and in the case of the administration’s proposed changes to our dining plan options, they count a whole lot. The new plan announced this week will trade our popular a la carte system for a hybrid system of paying for all-you-can-eat meals in the Class of 1953 Commons and buying individual items in other dining halls (“New plan to include pay-per-meal dining,” March 2).
The new plan may be well-intentioned — Director of Dining Services David Newlove expressed the hope that the new system would prevent students on financial aid from going negative on DBA early in the term — but it is ultimately misguided and mismatched with most students’ preferences.
Pay-for-meal systems are infamous for encouraging food waste and inhibiting flexibility. The ability to swipe a card once and take as much food as you’d like provides incentive for students to take more food than they can eat, and eat more food than they need. Why not sample three different desserts when you can take three for the price of one? In contrast, a system of paying for individual items requires students to make thoughtful food choices, while also offering more freedom to eat smaller meals and snack throughout the day. Many Dartmouth students have erratic eating schedules that include hasty in-between-class fruit cups, mid-afternoon sushi and late-night mozzarella sticks interspersed among small meals. A pay-by-meal plan does not accommodate their needs.
The hybrid aspect of the plan admittedly allows for some degree of freedom — Collis, Novack and the Hop will still be open for quick snacks, drinks and small meals. But this freedom is an upperclassman-only privilege. Freshmen will be required to pay for 20 meals a week, at a cost of $1,658 — an increase of more than $200 from the plan they are currently required to purchase. If they don’t want their dining funds to go to waste, freshmen will be limited to eating all but one meal per week in ’53 Commons. Segregating future freshman classes to a single dining hall is not only unfair, but also threatens to exacerbate the current lack of social interaction between freshmen and upperclassmen.
All classes will suffer from the social implications of the all-you-can-eat meal option, which prevents students who are not purchasing a meal from entering the dining hall’s seating area. Upperclassmen who opt to pay for only five meals per week, the smallest meal option, will largely become strangers to Food Court and Home Plate. The common practice of sitting and socializing with friends who have already eaten or aren’t hungry will be impossible in ’53 Commons under the new system. These detrimental social effects are ironic given that the renovations to ’53 Commons have been marketed as a way to increase the number of non-Greek social spaces on campus.
If, as Newlove suggests, the College wants to help students save money, it should work to lower the costs of outrageously priced DDS food. Drastically changing our unique a la carte plan is a poor fix for a system that isn’t broken.
The answer to all of these problems is choice. If the College is going to run a food service, then you can participate or not. A college food service isn’t the answer though. The answer is opening the campus up to food companies in business to make a profit. The College is in business to lose money…big greasy gobs of money are lost by the college each and every year, with no end ever.
By Bobo on Mar 4 | 1:08 pm
It is so disappointing to me that the same administration that focused on building new, alternative social spaces that every student on campus can enjoy is now instituting ways to prevent students from using these new social spaces! this is the most contradictory message the board of trustees could possibly send out.
By ‘13 on Mar 6 | 2:23 pm
As an undergrad, I was on financial aid. I worked for DDS and, despite being a fairly large guy, was always on the smallest meal plan and always had leftover DBA. Often “going negative” is not because you eat too much, but because you buy the more expensive items. Most of the people I knew who consistently went negative spent lots of DBA on sushi and Odwalla, etc. and they couldn’t care less how large of a bill got sent to their parents. I also knew of a few students on financial aid who would run out of DBA towards the end of the term and then buy groceries from the Coop because that is much cheaper than the exorbitant DDS rates.
When I was applying to colleges, the “a la carte” system appealed to me because I would be able to have more control over how much I spent on a given meal rather than being forced to waste money on buffet-style meals. Mr. Newlove, those of us who worked under you know how out of touch you are with the students. The idea that you are implementing this system to act in the best interest of students is laughable.
By ‘09 on Mar 6 | 6:43 pm
One suggestion: We go to UC Santa Barbara for a family vacation every summer and get many meals in one of the dining commons there. It is a pay per meal service. This past year, they made a simple change that saved a lot of money and greatly reduced waste. They did away with trays. You now have to carry plates of food to your table. You can make multiple trips of course, but you cannot get a tray unless you are disabled or for another very good reason. They have been able to save so much money from this change due to savings from not wasting food and the reduced number of dishes to wash that they are able to invest in higher-quality organic and local foods. When I first encountered this change, I was highly skeptical and groaned a little about the extra work it might entail. I was fully acclimated to the new system within a matter of days.
By Linda Swenberg on Mar 7 | 12:51 pm