A draft of “The Concept of Dining Purpose Statement,” which outlines the priorities of a new dining plan for the University, was presented at Sunday’s WSA Meeting. The Dining Services Advisory Committee aims to finalize the plan before the end of the month so that it can be presented to vendors if a contract for campus dining services is put up for bid this spring.
The plan accounts for the upcoming changes in dining facilities, which center around the new Usdan University Center’s “marketplace,” which will replace Mocon in 2007.
“In recent years, the dining program has been increasingly criticized for poor quality, inflated prices and a lack of transparency in the program’s operations,” the draft said. “This Concept of Dining Plan aims to create a new vision for Wesleyan dining, one that strives to meet high standards for quality, value and community cohesiveness while remaining responsive to evolving student needs.”
According to the plan, freshmen and sophomores would be given five dinner meals per week and a significantly larger amount of points than the current plan allows.
“Say there is one week where you have six dinner meals, and another week where you only have four,” said WSA Dining Committee Rep Zelda Ferguson ’06, who authored the draft with WSA Dining Committee Rep Max Ornstein ’09. “You would have the opportunity to use these meals [as you wish] throughout the semester. The rest of the meals will be purchased using flex points.”
Given that freshmen and sophomores would have a block of 120 meals to spend over the entire semester, unused meals would not be “lost” as they are under the current policy. The plan proposes that meals will be accepted at all on-campus facilities, including the University Center, Summerfields, a new Weshop dining area, Star and Crescent, and Chique Chaque. It is possible that meals will be accepted at the privately-owned WesWings and Red and Black, although it would have to be approved by the service workers union, as those facilities employ students and other non-union workers.
Juniors and seniors would be placed on an all-points plan. Seniors, however, would be offered the option of either a full points plan (approximately 2,600 points per year) or a half points plan (approximately 1,400 points per year).
“Juniors and seniors will have an all-points plan because many of them have access to kitchens, and towards that a lot of seniors have expressed that they would not like to have all their money tied up in a points plan, so they would have the option to buy only half,” Ferguson said.
In addition to re-envisioning meal plan options, the draft also prioritizes a strong commitment to food quality and value.
“Because of labor costs at Wesleyan, all food will be at least some percentage higher than it will be at local supermarkets or delis that don’t use union workers,” said WSA Finances and Facilities Committee Gabe Tabak ’07. “Still, food quality should always be comparable.”
The plan also addresses the student body’s concern for sustainability and energy conservation, as well as stating that the food service provider should work with Long Lane Farm to create a food waste composting system.
Still, in the end, costs will likely dictate how many of the priorities will be required by the contract.
“I mean, we’d love to maintain fair-trade practice, we’d love to have everything organically and locally grown, free-range everything imaginable, but the truth is if we tried to do that for every single article of food on campus, the cost would be higher than the program is now,” Tabak said. “We’ll be weighing exactly what each of these factors cost, and strike a balance between student priorities in a way that is both socially responsible and fiscally reasonable.”
While most were enthusiastic about the plan, some questioned policies that were omitted.
WSA member Anda Greeney ’07 asked why more emphasis wasn’t placed on enriching ties to the Middletown community by allowing students to use meals or points at local restaurants.
“One idea that was floated during our discussions was to have a section of points that could be used at local restaurants, but that again is not consistent with the interests of the union,” Ferguson said.
Still, Greeney persisted.
“Isn’t this supposed to be a proposal of what we want?” he said. “We should force [the foodservice vendor] to be creative, not decide that they won’t be able to do something before we even ask them to.”
Catherine McAllister ’06 said the decisions about the dining plan shouldn’t come down to just finances, but also social value.
“There’s a part of me that thinks it’s good that freshmen have the camaraderie of eating dinner in Mocon in the same timeslot,” she said. “Maybe it would be better to extend that experience a little bit, to sophomores.”
Director of Auxilary Operations and Campus Services Manny Cunard will consider the plan and create a Request for Proposal, which will most likely go on to a bid this spring.
“We’re expecting three to five responses from foodservice providers,” Cunard said. “It’s been a good, solid process and we’ll see [which foodservice provider] can deliver, and in the end that could well be Aramark.”
Leave a Reply