New dining plans and locations have been announced for students this year, as a result of months of communication between students, administrators and consultants.
“We’re trying to cater to your lifestyles,” Senior Manager of Contracts and Project Management Jack Noon said. “It’s going to be neat.”
The new Club Meal plan replaces the “block” plans that gave students a certain number of meals equivalent to $6 per week. The meals give students a fixed number of meals to use at any time during the semester. For example, a freshman using the 10 blocks a week plan would instead have 170 Club Meals per semester.
The three Club Meal plans will also offer 20% discounts on “all you can eat” meals using declining balance, as well as an increase in the number of guest meals, among other changes.
Additionally, there are four Club Declining Balance Plans offered this year, ranging from $1,500 to $500 per semester.
“We have taken away the bonus dollars and we replaced them with discounts,” Noon said, referring to varying levels of discounts dependant on the buy-in amount.
Students will also be able to exchange Club Meals for various combinations depending on the dining location.
With plans to look at the current situation of UR Dining Services, the university-hired independent consultants have begun a campus-wide survey of students, staff and faculty.
While plans are still made for other locations, a new deli featuring smoothies and Java City beverages has been placed in Hillside this year.
Douglass will offer “all you can eat meals” for lunch, while remaining a la carte for dinner.
Student Input
The consultants have been working with Dining Services since last August and are hoping to determine the level of satisfaction with campus cuisine as a whole.
The study has been extended to include Eastman School of Music students, in an effort to receive input from all sides of UR.
The outside consultant groups – Cornyn Fasano Group, ECS Consulting and Market Decisions Corporation – have attempted to formulate an idea of the status of dining services by getting feedback from the community. “The survey is a review of all the dining locations and an overall view of food services’ operations,” Noon said.
Student input is the main force behind the changes, and it is the most crucial part in this stage of the analysis of dining services. Noon stressed the value of this. “Student input is important, and we’re trying to get student input and their expectations [from the survey],” he said.
Focus groups were also held by the consultants and have been a key element in making needed changes to all aspects of campus dining. “The focus groups will provide essential information that will help the consultants give us their very best recommendations,” Dean of The College William Green said.
Ronald Paprocki, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for UR discussed the fact that some issues are long term. “By longer-term issues, I mean what kind of facilities, dining plans, food offerings, etc. we should have in order to best meet the needs of our students and the academic and student-life programs,” he said.
River Campus also contacted Eastman School Assistant Dean of Residential Life Linda Muise to gather students for the survey, which she was pleased to comply with. “It is wonderful to be involved, I’m very pleased the university included us,” she said. “This is our opportunity, I feel, to tell the university what [students] feel about dining services.”
“I would like to see better hours to accommodate the rehearsals and different groups we have,” Muise said.
Student reactions to current dining services and the survey varied. “I hadn’t heard about the survey but I do plan on taking it,” said sophomore Marina Skrombolas.
“There’s not enough variety. I’m sick of eating the same foods over and over,” sophomore Shirin Atri said.
Linden can be reached at klinden@campustimes.org.
Schnee can be reached at cschnee@campustimes.org.
