Originally published on DavidsonNews.net.
Starting in the fall of 2015, Davidson College will require students in the class of 2018 and after to buy campus meal plans – at cost of nearly $2,400 a year. Details are still in the works, but the change is already attracting widespread criticism from students.
In particular, members of Patterson Court Committee (PCC) organizations – the school’s fraternities, sororities and eating houses – which typically provide meals for their members as part of their membership fee, say the change will hurt their membership, by forcing those who wish to join to purchase a meal plan from the school in addition to the organization’s meal plan.
In an email to students Friday afternoon, Davidson College president Carol Quillen said the college has seen significant changes in the health and dietary needs of students in recent years. Meeting students’ expectations for food offerings requires a stable source of income that the college now plans to generate through the mandatory meal plan, Quillen said.
“This change … will allow us to offer high quality food that meets the needs of all of our students, both in terms of variety and hours of operation. And while this new policy will incur greater costs to our program, Davidson continues to remain among the lowest of our peers in required meal plan purchases,” Quillen wrote.
Many of Davidson’s peer institutions have long required all students to subscribe to a meal plan. For example, Middlebury College in Vermont charges all students a “comprehensive tuition fee that provides students with breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week.” In comparison, Davidson would only require students to subscribe to the minimal meal plan, which offers 90 meals that can be used at any point throughout the semester, at a cost of $2,398 per year.
Profitability for the school’s dining services has long relied on student meal plan subscriptions rather than at-the-door payments, and the college often resorts to special deals and other promotions in hopes that more students would sign up for a meal plan. In 2011, the Davidsonian student newspaper reported that students eat an average of 70 to 76 percent of the meals they purchase each week, a fact the college’s dining services relies on to maintain profitability.
“If for reasons unknown to us, every student started using 100 percent of every meal every week we would have a very rough year because the whole budget is set up on the knowledge of how often students use their meal plan. Our budget structure anticipates percentage of use,” Director of Auxiliary Services Richard Terry told the Davidsonian.
Dining costs have been going up at Davidson in recent years. In 2011, a dinner at Vail Commons, the school’s main cafeteria, was $11.75. Today, it’s $12.25. Add on an 8.25 percent sales tax on foods sold on college campuses passed by the NC legislature in August 2013, and that’s an increase of 12 percent in three years.
At the same time, tuition has also been on the increase. For the 2013-2014 school year, Davidson tuition was $42,425, but that’s increased to $45,377 for the current school year.
The first students to receive news of the upcoming change were Student Government Association (SGA) President Zi Yang, SGA Auxiliary Services Committee chair Kyle Taylor and the presidents of Patterson Court Committee (PCC) organizations, the college’s fraternities, sororities and eating houses. They were called to a meeting on Thursday with college president Carol Quillen, Dean of Students Tom Shandley and Director of Auxiliary Services Richard Terry, where they were told of the proposed requirement and invited to offer feedback on how to best implement it – not whether or not it should be implemented.
“The decision has been made. I could sense immediately that it’s set in stone,” Yang said.
“President Quillen’s tone was very remorseful as she was explaining it to us,” said Alpha Phi Alpha president Mahlek Pothemont. “It was very clear that they understood this was a decision that was going to have some unwanted consequences, but that it was something they had to do.”
Meeting with PCC organization presidents, Quillen explained that as the makeup of the student body becomes more diverse and students call for food options to meet an increasingly complex set of dietary restrictions, the college needs to improve dining services’ profitability before they can meet these demands. At the same time, improving dining services is an important way to make the school competitive with its peer institutions, Quillen said. In this, Davidson would follow a national trend of colleges dishing up delectable dinners as a key selling point to attract highly qualified students.
PATTERSON COURT CONCERNS
The change will adversely affect PCC organizations in particular, Turner Eating House president Abby Peoples said. Currently, her eating house requires all sophomore members to purchase a full meal plan of 10 meals per week through the house at a cost of $750 per semester.
“We’re concerned that with the additional requirement [to purchase a meal plan from the school] people won’t have the funds to pay for a meal plan in a PCC organization. One of those is mandatory and the other is not. We’re afraid that membership will dwindle as a result,” Peoples said.
On top of that, Peoples said she’s concerned the change will lead to PCC organizations becoming exclusive clubs that only those who have the socioeconomic means to purchase a meal plan they don’t need will join.
“We pride ourselves on keeping prices low … To a lot of students, meal plan doesn’t seem to be the most fiscally responsible decision,” Peoples said.
The numbers support her claim. At $750 per semester, the 10 meals per week Turner members receive come out to about $5 per meal. The cheapest meal plan, in comparison, which offers students 21 meals per week at a cost of $3,135 per semester, is more than $9 per meal.
Emily Griffin, president of Rusk Eating House, agrees.
“This is creating a line that’s creating a socioeconomic boundary. I already have girls who I help do financial planning so they can remain in Rusk. This decision is totally dividing people,” Griffin said. “Being a member of one of these houses is going to become a status symbol, and that’s a problem.”
Griffin said she’s also concerned about what will happen to the cooks employed by the PCC organizations to prepare their meals.
“This decision really affects our cook. I know they may be thinking, this is just one person, but that one person really means a lot to us, and I don’t think that was ever taken into consideration,” Griffin said.
The response from PCC organization members has not been positive.
“I’ve heard a lot of confusion from members – not just of Turner, but other eating houses too – wondering where was the student input on this? We don’t feel like we were part of any conversation – they told us about it just a few hours before it was announced to the entire student body,” Peoples said. “[Patterson Court Committee president] Cam Parker wasn’t even invited to the meeting.”
Having meals at the house has a personal meaning for many PCC organization members as well. “I was not particularly into Patterson Court when I first got to Davidson,” Peoples said. “The only reason I got really involved was because I had to eat all of my meals there sophomore year. Had I not been required to have my meals at Turner, I wouldn’t be the president of Turner today.”
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