What's Up with Meal Plan Changes?

With a new school year comes change and this year there are some exciting changes to dining service on the Southeast campus. Of course, there is one not so exciting change as well, but first let’s start with the good news. 

Good News

Dining Hours: The major dining venues on campus--Towers, University Center, and St. Vincent’s Commons---previously closed at 7:00pm each night after dinner. These venues will now be open until 8:00pm for dinner. This is a request that has been at the top of student requests for more than three years and the new contract allows us to make this major change in our meal service hours.

Weekend Meal Service: For the first time in more than two decades, the meal service on both sides of campus, the south side (University Center) and the north side of campus (Towers), as well as St. Vincent’s Commons, will serve brunch and dinner on Saturday and Sunday. For students on the south side of campus, this may be the most significant change.

The new (Second) Subway service line

Subway Squared: Subway completed a renovation this summer and a second full service sandwich line was added. This, along with the staff to manage this line, will provide for much faster service. Fun fact… we did more than $1,000,000 in sales of sandwiches at the campus Subway! The construction photo shows the new service line at Subway being installed two weeks ago. 

Costs: The meal plan rate did not increase from academic year 2014-2015 to this academic year. Students pay the same for a 15 meal plan this year that they did last year. The structure of the meal plan has changed (expanded hours, Subway squared, roll over flex, weekend service) but the basic cost has remained the same. 

Bad News

Meal to Flex: Each year there are meals that go uneaten by students. Some students have a 15 meal plan and miss three meals one week, another two the next, etc. In the past, these meals rolled over to $1.50 in “roll over flex.” Of course it was great to get something for a missed meal, however, the $1.50 in flex was not close to the value of a meal in any of our dining venues and was, when you break down the math, not a great way to try and gain additional flex.

• One actual student example from last year involved a student who missed an average of four meals a week, on a 15 meal plan. These missed meals rolled over to $6 in roll over flex or $192 in flex dollars for the year.  This same student could have lowered their meal plan from a 15 to a 10 meal plan and saved $270 in cost. If they used this $270 savings to buy $192 in flex dollars/Redbucks they would have saved almost $80 in cost and still had the same level of flex dollars.

This pattern of usage was not uncommon and, because of the low value of missed meals, the Dining Services Committee chose to explore other ways to improve the meal plan to expand access in order to allow students to use their meal plans in more flexible ways than in the past.

IMHO Other Cool Random Stuff:

• In addition to late night breakfast on the Monday of exams, there is also now a Tuesday night “pizza and pasta” late night dinner offering at no cost to students, and Wednesday late night dessert bar scheduled for each final exam week.
• Last year, there were two “premium” meals each month (think steak night) and this year there will be three “premium” meals each month.
• At least three “Cooking 101” classes each month lead by the RD for Chartwells where the RD will work hands on with students to cook meals. These meals, both their recipe and cooking method are designed for students to be able to cook in any of our residence hall
•  A new program for partnering with International Students to have an “authentic meal” provides as an additional option on a rotating basis at different times throughout the semester.

Updates on Panda Express and a change at Chick-fil-A that everyone will approve of coming soon.