Opinion

Hamilton meal plan rules are too strict

By Clare Rock ’16

On the surface, it appears as though Hamilton offers a satisfactory range of Bon Appétit meal plans. There is the standard 21-meal plan (otherwise known as the unlimited plan because it includes re-swipes during the same meal period), the 14-meal plan, the 7-meal plan and some housing-specific plans like those found in Rogers and the Co-op. During the housing lottery, students have the opportunity to pick their meal plan alongside their room assignment. However, due to a few reasons, the only truly viable option  available is the unlimited plan. I consider this a serious flaw in a school that seemingly encourages connection to food through numerous food-centered classes (consider Food For Thought and Food And Philosophy) and food-centered clubs (consider Slow Food, Culinary Society, Club Ento and the Community Farm).

To start, I believe it is a real flaw that the meal plan is tied directly to housing options and therefore to the housing lottery. There is an arbitrary distinction between dorms that allows some people to sign up for the 7-meal plan while others don’t have that option. For example, though the Milbank and Babbitt suites have nearly identical kitchens to those in Dark Side faculty apartments like Minor or McIntosh (in fact, those faculty apartments have smaller kitchens), suite residents do not qualify for the 7-meal plan. Additionally, since the majority of dorms that offer the 7-meal plan are social living spaces (e.g. Morris House suites, faculty apartments, apartment-style dorms like Griffin Road and the Farmhouse with a significant amount of doubles), this can make it particularly complicated for students who anticipate wanting to be on the 7 plan to find a group of friends or other students willing to alter their housing plans just to accommodate the meal plan desires of one person. This essentially confines and limits a student’s full year of eating habits to the lottery process, which is already complex enough. Moreover, the majority of Hamilton students pick their housing based on social or living preferences, with meal plans being an afterthought. As a result, a number of students in both Morris House and some faculty apartments are choosing to stay on the 21 plan because they did not choose their housing based on meal plan access but on location preference. This in effect means that they participated in a lottery for meal plan choice but ended up picking the standard option, leaving out students who might have been opting for certain housing specifically for meal plan access.

I also find it ridiculous that the price difference between the 14- and 21-meal plans is essentially negligible (with the 21 plan coming in at $2,850 per semester and the 14 plan at $2,695 per semester), creating basically no incentive to chose the 14 plan over the 21 plan, while the 7 plan can save students thousands of dollars (the cost per semester for the 7 plan is $1,485). The difference of a mere $155 per semester between the 14 and 21 plans is definitely not worth the difference between the two plans, which literally consists of infinite meals because the 21 plan is unlimited. The only reason a student would elect a 14 plan is because they want to cook 7 meals a week for themselves, which the approximately $10 a week (or $1.40 per meal) saved by switching meal plans from 21 to 14 certainly doesn’t cover.

Because there’s no option with a significant monetary difference between the 7 plan and the 21 (unlimited) plan, that makes it quite expensive for some students—those who are prepared to grocery shop, cook for themselves and in general, prepare to transition into “real world” living beyond Hamilton—to even have the option, given the typical student’s budget, to cook just a few meals a week in their dorms, instead of the dining hall. By paying for the 21 plan, even cooking these few extra meals a week would be more similar to paying two meal plans, one self-provided and one dining hall-provided.

I completely understand that there is a requirement, based on the contract between Hamilton and Bon Appétit, that a certain number of students must be on the 14- or 21-meal plans in order to provide a base budget for Bon Appétit’s operations. I find myself frustrated, however, that the 7-meal plan is such a limited option for most students. This seems especially misguided because Morris House just opened this year with the 7-meal plan option attached, while similar (or even identical, by lottery standards) housing—like the suites—wasn’t updated.

From my perspective, there are a few easy ways that Hamilton and Bon Appétit could amend the meal plan options to be more accessible to students.

To start, if Bon Appétit has a certain maximum quota of 7-meal plans available, yet Hamilton chooses to still tie meal plans to housing, then it could be an option for students in other dorms to fill up 7-meal plan slots after pre-approved students (those in current 7 plan housing like Morris House, apartments, etc.) have chosen their meal plan. This could be a case-by-case application system until Bon Appétit’s quota has been filled.

Alternatively, if no such quota exists, the 7 plan could be made available to all seniors, all seniors who have private kitchens or all students who have private kitchens.

Lastly, a plan could be created to replace the 14-meal plan with a meal plan option that students are actually incentivized to choose. With the cost difference between the 14 and 21 plans being nearly negligible considering the components of the plan, there is literally no reason for the current 14 plan to exist. Perhaps, for example, a meal plan with 10 swipes, or a lunch- or dinner-only meal plan, could be more cost-effective for Bon Appétit and more useable for students.

The bureaucracy surrounding the meal plans seems overblown considering the small student body at Hamilton. Currently, Hamilton only makes exceptions for students not in pre-approved housing to choose the 7 plan if they have a religious or medical explanation. I find this incompatible with what Hamilton as a college attempts to achieve: a school that prepares students to be self-sufficient and to take initiative, here and after graduation. Forcing the majority of students to live on the 21-meal plan all four years not only limits each student’s ability to learn how to take care of themselves, but also to take advantage of their Hamilton experience as they choose to. We eat three meals a day, seven days a week for the hundreds of days we spend at Hamilton before graduating; we should certainly have more agency in choosing how we access or prepare those meals.

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