Students came back from spring break to massive dining changes. Late Night was devoid of practically all snacks and favorite meals, and the Courtyard Cafe had digital ordering kiosks instead of dining workers checking out students. According to a survey conducted by Dartmouth Student Government, 94% of student respondents were dissatisfied or strongly dissatisfied with the changes to Late Night dining.
As a House senator and a member of DSG’s Dining Advisory Committee, I can attest that our representatives were not consulted about this decision. I’ve heard nothing but complaints about dining in the past weeks, and I don’t blame students. These changes are highly problematic and harmful to the student dining experience. Dartmouth Dining should immediately reverse these detrimental changes in response to widespread student dissatisfaction — particularly at Courtyard Cafe — and adopt a more transparent model of consultation in future decision-making.
Previously, Courtyard Cafe was a social hub in which students could interact both with one another and Dartmouth Dining employees as they ordered their food and checked out. The new environment feels sterile and impersonal, stripping away a key element of what made dining at Courtyard Cafe so enjoyable.
In addition, recent changes diminish student choice and exacerbate food insecurity. The new meal swipe combinations, which are now the only ways to use meal swipes at Courtyard Cafe, force students into getting a drink, a specific-sized portion and a side — a minimal amount of fries or a random piece of fruit. The only way to get snacks, beverages or meals external to the meal combinations’ offerings is through dining dollars, rather than as additions to your original meal purchase. This policy assumes a one-size-fits-all meal portion that does not adequately reflect the diverse needs of different Dartmouth students. Many customizations, such as a variety of salad options and the fresh fruit bar, have been eliminated, further reducing choice.
Further, this one-size-fits all approach significantly diminishes the environmental sustainability of Courtyard Cafe. Regardless of the size of their meal, every student is given a massive paper bag, and there is no selection option for “for here” or “to-go” to allow students to opt out of this bag. Further, the new meal combinations allow for the option to get a drink with just one large size option. This leads to more plastic waste because students feel forced into getting drinks in large plastic cups. From my observation, the garbage bins scattered throughout Courtyard Cafe are always massively filled to the brim with this waste.
These changes have the potential to pressure students to go to alternative dining locations, such as the Class of ’53 Commons. Ordering ahead using the GET app was a popular option for students at Courtyard Cafe because lines are often very long. Now that this feature has been eliminated, it’s less easy to just grab food at Courtyard Cafe.
The changes are especially limiting to students on the Ivy Unlimited meal plan, which first years are required to be on. The Unlimited Plan centralizes swipes as a student’s primary form of spending, and only contains $325 Dining Dollars per term. In the past, students used their swipe to purchase any combination of a meal or snacks. Now, however, students on this plan are forced to spend their entire swipe on a prescribed combo, eliminating their ability to maximize the swipe.
It defeats the purpose of Dartmouth Dining’s weekly meetings with DSG if the organization is not going to consult with us. To be fair, Dartmouth Dining director Jon Plodzik’s recent email to the student body begins to address student concerns, by expanding combo offerings and largely reverting changes to Late Night. However, his message continues to fail to address many common concerns including deprivation of human interaction, sustainability and lack of meal choice. Dartmouth Dining is intended to serve students, a responsibility magnified by their monopoly on dining choices in the area.
Dartmouth Dining cannot continue to ignore the overwhelming dissatisfaction on the part of students regarding recent Courtyard Cafe changes — they must act now to revert and respond to all of the demands of Student Government that have been echoed by the rest of the student body.
Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
