Should Dining Offer More Choices?

Author: Pierce Graham-Jones

Since the beginning of the academic year, Middlebury College students living on campus have eaten about 40 percent of the breakfasts to which they are entitled. Overall, students have missed more than one-third of the total meals offered to them, according to statistics compiled by Dining Services running up to Oct. 20. Yet, even in the face of these numbers, Middining embraces a mandatory comprehensive dining package for students living on campus. In the world of collegiate cafeteria dining, Middlebury is one of the few colleges to endorse such a policy.
Unlike most schools, the College's dining plan is included in its comprehensive fee. Students do not know how much they are paying each term for cafeteria dining, nor do they have the ability to choose other options. Whether students eat one meal or five meals a day, they pay the same amount as part of their tuition.
This amount, although undisclosed to students, can be inferred by the fact that students who live off campus and choose not to participate in the meal plan receive a $2,300 refund for the entire year.
Other colleges similar to Middlebury offer a range of dining options.
Dartmouth College and Trinity College each operate with a declining balance system. Under this system, students purchase individual items of food, the price of which is detracted from a previously deposited account. Both schools offer a few different options to upperclassmen as to how much money they must deposit each term. Dartmouth students can start each trimester with as little as $610.
This system is the opposite of Middlebury's, allowing students absolute flexibility in what food, and how much food, they choose to purchase. Moreover, dining services at schools like Dartmouth and Trinity must cater to students' taste buds in order to be financially successful.
However, such policies raise the concern that students attempt to save money by cutting back on their food intake. Director of Dining Services Peter Napolitano, who previously headed Dartmouth's dining services, described the system as creating a distinction between the "haves and the have-nots." Students with financial need are put in a position of disadvantage in the dining hall and, according to Napolitano, eating disorders were a much more prominent problem when he was at Dartmouth than under his current directorship at Middlebury.
Nevertheless, the statistics above indicate that students are missing meals for reasons other than finances. Everybody at Middlebury has the opportunity to eat at every meal, yet less than two-thirds of these meals are consumed.
Other colleges have avoided the declining balance system by offering different plans that still allow unlimited consumption during each meal. The differentiation between plans lies completely in the amount of meals students choose to purchase each semester. Williams College students, for example, may choose full board (similar to Middlebury's policy), 14 meals a week or 10 meals a week. Under this system, students who do not eat breakfast save $323 a year.
With plans such as these, the argument still holds that students may try to cut back on their food intake to save money. Rather than cutting back at every meal, they would instead try to cut back on the amount of meals they eat altogether.
Amherst College offers the plan that is perhaps most shielded from this argument. Like Middlebury, dining there is included in the comprehensive fee. However, students are given the option of either a full plan or a plan that does not include breakfasts.Yet rather than save money by opting to not eat breakfast, students instead receive $100 in "Bonus Bucks" per semester, money that may only be used at other on-campus food retailers (the Amherst equivalents of The Grille or Midd-Express.)
So, why does Middlebury stick with its comprehensive dining package?
According to Bob Huth, vice president of the administration and treasurer, the College wants every student to be able to "take full advantage of the Middlebury experience without worrying about piecemeal charging for services. Unlike other institutions, Middlebury does not have separate athletic fees, technology fees or health center fees." This is certainly a valid point if the suggestion were for Middlebury to enact either a declining balance system or a meal plan system, but it does not relate to a system such as Amherst's.
Napolitano fears that any concessions from complete comprehensive dining for every student would detract from his goal of providing the most "relaxed," "convenient," "comprehensive" and "flexible" dining package possible. The current plan enables all students to eat as much as they want, when they want, as long as it is within the dining halls' hours of operation. His plan complements the College's emphasis on community and inclusiveness, and prevents any financial inequality.
But it remains questionable whether an adoption of a system similar to Amherst's would detract from any of these priorities. If a no-breakfast option was offered, students who do not eat breakfast would actually be given more opportuinties to eat, such as at the Grille after dinner hours. The choice would be one based solely on lifestyles, not finances — and dining would remain a component of the comprehensive fee.
Nonetheless, it may remain, as Napolitano stated, that this policy would create a "disruption of student life [that] may be too heavy of a price to pay."