Eating in the Usdan Marketplace is, for many, an out-of-body experience. It begins at the moment that students ascend the stairwell. Like St. Peter at the pearly gates, the cashiers swipe the faithful through onto their next journey. From there, students are peristaltically pushed through the open doors into a world divorced from traditional beliefs of time and space. Fusilli from Italy and cheesesteaks from Mongolia are just a quick jaunt away from one another. Produce can come from anywhere, from the familiar Long Lane Farm to the curiosity-piquing Horse Listeners’ Orchard. The water is “fortified,” and the pastabilities are endless. We are torn from this alternate dimension when forced to confront a fundamental identity choice: Do we belong to the Apollonian Quiet Side or the Dionysian Loud Side? The choice, of course, is artificial. We sit with our friends, and they sit with us. Confusion, ecstasy, and ego death: a winning formula indeed.

It may come as a surprise, then, that this year the Marketplace has chosen to shake up the experience. Students arrived at the dining hall to find several mounted TVs placed at strategic locations around the Marketplace. The TVs cycle through the menu options of the day, far more visible than their paper predecessors. The move represents a leap forward for the school into the electrical age. However, at a time when campus budgetary decisions are under scrutiny, the TVs struck some students as yet another inexplicable purchase. When viewed alongside our new sundial and questionable new logo switch (and then switch back!), students are rightfully concerned about the University’s priorities.

For once, this concern may be misplaced. As it turns out, the decision to buy the TVs, among all other renovations to the marketplace, fell under the purview and budget of Bon Appétit. In other words, the money spent on TVs was not Wesleyan’s to decide what to do with. This does mean, unfortunately, that the conspiracy did not go all the way to the top as I had hoped. Rather, the decision took place completely independently of University staff members. Still, Director of the Usdan University Center Michelle Myers-Brown is a supporter of Bon Appétit’s decision.

“[The TVs] support sustainability efforts on campus, as it eliminates the constant reprinting of menus and it allows for fast updates when menus change, critical for students with allergies and intolerances,” she said.

This sustainable change is mirrored in the switch from paper to-go containers to the hard plastic variety.

While it is news to many that Wesleyan was not directly responsible for the changes to the Marketplace, this answer is not satisfying to everybody. Many would prefer a different allocation of Bon Appétit’s budget.

“I wish they would just spend it on cheese,” says Cole Stevenson ’21.

This concern, though legitimate, does not seem to be shared by the rest of the student body. To others, the changes are a true neutral.

“I came back after the summer and thought, ‘Oh, they updated’,” one Usdan cashier told The Argus.

She also points out, however, that some students have been thrown off by the Late Night options being displayed on the opposite side of the register. Overall, the student body appears to have acclimated quickly to the change, and it is back to business-as-usual.

A legitimate qualm to be had about the new TVs relates to their supposed environmental sustainability. While it is true that the TVs can be used in perpetuity where the paper menus are continuously rotated out, there are other complicating factors. For one, paper is easily recyclable. If the TVs need to be replaced, it’s much less likely that the material will be repurposed in a sustainable manner. Furthermore, the energy cost of keeping all of the TVs running from morning through Late Night is non-negligible, particularly given the large screens and bright white background color. In this sense, the waste is abstracted away from the palpable image of paper to the less tangible power plant. This is not to say that the move to TVs was not a change for the better, but that there are certain externalities to consider beyond reusability.

Though the majority of the updates in the University dining halls this year have taken place in Usdan, Summies—not wanting to be left behind—has also instituted some new changes for the school year. One notable change is the scribbling out of previous menu items in Sharpie (another environmentally conscious choice). In addition, they no longer leave out individually wrapped desserts, thwarting many students who would have otherwise squirreled away dozens of brownies in their dorm rooms. Some changes are even more ambitious.

“It is, in a word: sushi,” says Hannah Berman ’21 in summary of the new sushi offering.

As Berman observes, most food at the University is what it says it is: nothing more, nothing less. The cosmetic and environmental changes to the Marketplace may have an effect on our collective experience but only to an extent. Whether we read the menu in printer ink or LED pixels, the food is the food is the food.

Alex Tripp can be reached at atripp@wesleyan.edu.