People are taking up New Year’s resolutions left and right – eat healthier, overcome procrastination, spend more time outdoors, learn to play guitar, etc. Changes are seen everywhere, and some students think CNU’s meal plan should be no exception.
Most students agree the food on campus is of high quality. The facilities, like all other facilities on campus, are top notch, though occasionally crowded (come on, Regatta’s expansion, let’s move it along). Overall, the dining experience at CNU is satisfactory, but students often find grievances with the school when it comes to the financial side of things.
Because students are only allotted so many swipes per week at specific times per day, they find themselves missing meals when they visit home or take an unexpectedly long nap during the day. For those with smaller meal plans, it’s much easier to play catch up later in the week so they don’t waste money. Unfortunately for the freshmen and sophomores who don’t have the luxury of smaller meal plans, it’s hard to compensate for lost meals (or in the case of those with a 19 meal plan: impossible).
Transfer student Summer Enger said, “I think the food is absolutely great!” compared to her past school but continued to say she’d prefer a swipe system, rather than the restrictive system we have now. “If you don’t use it, you lose it, which is not okay because I pay for it,” Enger said.
Other students desire to make the lunch and mixed grill periods two separate meals, allowing students to swipe for both in one day. Some want to increase the amount of dining dollars that come with each meal plan and increase the number of venues that accept them. Still others choose to complete the paperwork necessary to have no meal plan while living in an underclassman dorm because they don’t think campus food is worth it, like sophomore Clanci Conover. She said she found that she was paying for both groceries and a meal plan when she could pay a smaller amount of money for only groceries to fulfill her needs.
Sophomore Sarah Scott, a Her Campus CNU writer, mentioned she analyzed different meal plans for a class proposal. She looked at the meal plans of schools in Virginia with similar sizes to CNU like Mary Washington, schools with similar demographics and larger schools like UVA. Scott said she found a variety of meal plans implemented throughout the state CNU could adopt to combat students’ complaints.
“I feel that if there’s a dissatisfaction with the way CNU does meal plans, we have a lot of options,” Scott said. “And if we, as students, knew what options we have, we could possibly try and explore other venues.” She explained the block system meal plan, which allows students to buy a block of meals for each semester and give students more freedom with unlimited swipes per day. “I feel that the way CNU has us right now is a little restrictive because we can only swipe in once a meal time, and that means that if you can’t make it to a certain meal, you just miss a meal and there’s no compensation.”
With so many options available, perhaps it is time to investigate. Things like time constraints for each meal, limited number of swipes per week and lack of a compensation plan for lost meals are extremely restrictive. The less restrictive block system might be something more conducive to student’s inherently busy lives. What are your complaints with CNU’s meal plans? Do you think it is time for a change?