Beginning next semester, a new meal plan option will become available to all juniors and seniors. The Finance and Facilities Committee of the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) collaborated with the Wesleyan Dining Committee and Financial Services to create the meal plan.
Although the exact parameters are still being decided, the plan will most likely consist of 50 meals and a point balance that falls somewhere between the 723 points of the Block 105 Meal Plan and 1582 points of the All Declining Balance plan, also known as “all points.” Currently, juniors and seniors can choose from six different meal plan options.
Chair of the WSA Finance and Facilities Committee Andrew Trexler ’14 headed the efforts.
“If you’re cooking at home or at your apartment it is usually a lot more expensive to gather all of the materials and it takes more time, so it is useful to go to the dining hall a few times a week even as a junior or a senior,” Trexler said.
Students first proposed the idea to the Director of Usdan University Center Michelle Myers-Brown and Bon Appétit Resident District Manager Michael Strumpf. After several meetings last semester, the team passed the proposal along to the Associate Vice President for Finance Nathan Peters, who then began creating the plan.
“Many Juniors and Seniors still elect to have a block plan, but due to their housing availability and frequent internships the lowest available option of 105 was frequently not meeting the need, therefore the recommendation was for a smaller plan to be developed specifically for the upperclass students,” Myers-Brown wrote in an email to The Argus.
Some students feel that an additional meal plan option will better meet their daily needs.
“I think the new meal plan sounds fantastic,” Audrey Le ’15 said. “Obviously with access to a kitchen points are ideal, but I know there’s no way I’d be able to find time to make a nice homemade meal every day. It also couldn’t be more convenient to head to Usdan or Summerfields with the team after practice and I always feel like I’m wasting my points if I use them there. I would definitely consider this meal plan when selecting for next semester.”
The new plan aims to give juniors and seniors more flexibility so that they can dine while not compromising the independence that is meant to increase with each meal plan as students progress through their four years. However, there are still several details that need to be worked out and will not be determined until early March after the spring Board Meeting, Trexler said.
“The plan is not yet in place or complete; there are budget and computer programmatic issues that are still being resolved,” Myers-Brown wrote.
When asked how she believes the student body will respond to a new dining option, Myers-Brown did not anticipate any major changes.
“I think the juniors and seniors who would have normally elected the 105 plan may see this as a more flexible option for them; we may see a few more students take advantage of the ease of using a block meal versus points,” Myers-Brown wrote. “For the most part I believe the majority of juniors and seniors will stick with the all points option.”
The new meal plan will be available to all juniors and seniors starting next fall.