Meal plans, No Tray Fridays and the door handle thingys

I live off campus so I know nothing about meal plans, but I met with Dee Hardy, director of Dining Services. What I learned was that the meal plan themselves have not changed much throughout the years, but the cost of meal plans continues to rise with tuition increases.

This year's tuition increased 3.1 percent overall, and the cost of the Dining Services meal plan increased 3.4 percent. Hardy said the increases were due to the rising cost of food and energy - such as gas, heating and oil, natural gas, etc. Dining Services' utility bill increased significantly last year, Hardy said.

Dining Services, along with most of the university's departments, made major budget cuts during the last three years. Hardy said Ayers had asked for 5 percent cuts across the board for this year. Along with prioritizing services and options, D-Hall had a low turnover and was able to keep experienced employees.

And of course Dining Services added the two-swipe-per-meal-period rule, which means what it says. Because of the new rule, meal plan users can only use two meal swipes within a four-hour period. There was a lot of student outcry about the decision last year, but Hardy said the rule was implemented to cut costs. Meal plan users were abusing the system, she said, such as buying more than one meal at the Pier on Sunday nights, and Dining Services could not handle the cost.

Basically, students are getting the same thing but with an added rule and a higher price tag. It is a change similar to the tuition increase situation.

But, Dining Services is working on saving a little money by re-instituting No Tray Fridays for three weeks each month starting Sept. 4. Hardy said she and others met with members of Richmond College Student Government Association and Westhampton College Government Association, and they decided against going completely trayless - with the stipulation that the student governments run a sustainability campaign to educate students about waste reduction and its environmental impacts.

On a different note: Did anyone else notice that the door handle thingys on the inside doors of D-hall are missing? They were removed because they kept breaking, and because the outside doors can be locked, they were not necessary.

Oh, and the D-Hall cups are bigger. Students brought the idea of using bigger cups to the attention of Hardy because they said it would reduce waste and energy costs. At the end of last year Hardy told the students she would see whether the idea were plausible, and because it was they bought bigger cups. I honestly can't tell the difference.

Dining Services will also keep the D-Hall To Go Program. It seems to work well, as long as you can remember to bring back the container.

Contact staff writer Stephanie Rice at stephanie.rice@richmond.edu