As students finish out the spring semester, AU Dining has unveiled a drastic change to life on campus next year— a complete overhaul of the student meal plan.
Presently, the student meal plans permit students to use meal swipes in exchange for a meal from an AU Dining Retail location, with plans sold in increments of 50, 100 and 175 meal swipes. However, the new 2023-2024 meal plan makes eating on campus much more complex and confusing. Meal swipes are now only used at Terrace Dining Room (TDR) and “Retail Meal Exchanges” are used at all other campus dining locations; further, each plan offers unlimited access to TDR for a different amount of days per week.
Besides the complicated details of each meal plan, the problematic reality of this new system is the evident perpetuation of unhealthy eating habits. The “All Inclusive Basic” plan, which is the least expensive package offered, provides unlimited access to TDR four days a week and no Retail Meal Exchanges. Essentially, for a towering price of over $1800 per semester, and with access only to TDR, students must choose which days they can eat and which days they cannot.
During the 2022-2023 academic year, students can pay just over $1700 per semester to receive about six meals per week at any AU Dining Retail Location alongside $400 in Eaglebucks to purchase other food options. In comparison, the frugality of the new meal plan simply does not provide an adequate amount of food to paying students. The system directly impacts low-income students that cannot afford to fork over hundreds of additional dollars to a university that is already increasing tuition by five percent next year.
Freshman Ella Doxsee, the Co-Vice President of the AU Body Neutrality Coalition, argues that the new system promotes unhealthy intermittent fasting and directly harms those who cannot afford to eat off campus multiple days a week. Moreover, she argues that the plan promotes dangerous eating disorders that pose a direct threat to the wellbeing of the student population.
“Even worse, there are no university professionals that are trained in the treatment/prevention of eating disorders so students won’t have easy access to professional help once eating disorder cases rise,” Doxsee said.
According to Doxsee, the AU Body Neutrality Coalition aims to take action regarding the 2023-2024 meal plan and the group is currently meeting with AU personnel to understand more details about the new system.
“I wish I could pour all my energy into my education and the things that bring me joy,” Doxsee said. “I wish AU could have initially developed a more equitable and adequate plan or left the plan as it was, instead of choosing to maximize profits.”
Beyond the limited access to meals next year, the confinement of the meal plan to TDR means that students are stuck with a dining hall that has often failed to comply with health code requirements this year and offers only a limited array of food every day. Additionally, students with dietary restrictions, ranging from allergies to religious restrictions, are therefore faced with an important and recurring challenge of assuring the food prepared at TDR meets their needs.
The poor quality of the food at TDR is an infamous narrative within the AU student body. A student-run Instagram account with the handle @manvtdr showcases meals at the dining hall that include plastic, bugs, nearly raw meat and moldy bread. TDR’s substandard dining options are not enough to nourish the student body in a healthy and safe manner next year.
Essentially, AU Dining has quietly constructed a new meal plan for next year that will leave students dissatisfied, hungry and unhealthy. Distractions of celebrity chefs and promises of Panera and Qdoba locations on campus do not deter from the alarming reality that AU is leaving students without a sufficient amount of nutritious food next year.
Undoubtedly, food is necessary to fuel the student achievements that AU prides itself on. However, the new meal plan ensures that the university is setting its students up for failure next year in terms of both academics and health. For an institution that AU President Sylvia Burwell describes as “ …a University of strivers and dreamers, of activists and artists, of scholars and servant-leaders,” AU is standardizing a dining experience that is dangerous, frustrating and shameful.