Student concerns spark debate about meal plans

By Staff Editorial     9/18/08 7:00pm

At a Student Association meeting Sept. 8, Martel College senator Selim Sheikh proposed to the SA that Muslim students be refunded Tetra points for the meals they miss during Ramadan, when they must fast from dawn to sundown (see story, page 1). Muslim students are currently reimbursed 50 Tetra points, but Sheikh said the cost of the meals missed is closer to the value of 100 Tetra points.We are not going to debate here the relative merits of missing a series of meals for religious reasons against missing them because one sleeps late. That discussion is too large for an editorial column, and seems better suited for another time and place. What we would like to see, however, is a re-examination of the way meal plans at Rice are currently handled.

As it is, there is only one meal system for students who live on campus: You pay for 19 meals a week in advance, whether you eat all of them or not. The situation with Muslim students is one poignant example of why this setup might pose a problem, but one could easily imagine hundreds of other common scenarios that cause the same difficulties. Many students face conflicts of time or interest - like meetings or classes - that cause them to have to miss their meals or skip them altogether. Ask your friends if they eat breakfast, and you are likely to find more than a few that choose sleep over early-morning sustenance. If a student has a lab that conflicts with dinner, he essentially forfeits one meal a week. If he has a regularly-scheduled meeting that conflicts with a few lunches a week, he loses those meals, as well.

The cost can add up. If a student misses every single breakfast a day, he is losing $4 each morning or roughly $120 each month, which could otherwise go towards anything from books to lab fees to even plane tickets home for one extra trip.

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In light of the amount of money that any given student stands to lose because of normal college life scheduling conflicts, we think Rice should give more thought to altering or expanding the current meal plans. There are many possibilities: Housing and Dining could offer a pay-as-you-go system, or limited lunches or dinners like the current off-campus meal plan.

Whatever happens, we would like to stress that the meal plan management needs student input. There needs to be an open forum, a publicized meeting at which students can voice their concerns to those people who have the power to change how the current system works. Giving students a fairer way to purchase their meals should be an important priority, and, if achieved, will undoubtedly lead to more satisfied customers.

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