Grad meal plan unveiled

By Jennifer Ding     2/15/12 6:00pm

Off-campus students will have more meal plan options to choose from starting next semester due to the development of a new graduate student meal plan.

The plan provides graduate students with the option to eat lunch in the college serveries. Housing and Dining has decided to offer these meal plans to off-campus students as well.

According to Graduate Student Association President Sumedh Warudkar, many graduate students wish to eat lunch in the serveries.

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"The options available for graduate students … are either on the slightly expensive side or provide you [with] a limited number of options," Warudkar said. "The serveries offer a one-stop shop for a large variety of healthy and fresh food at very affordable prices."

Through discussions with H&D, Dean of Undergraduates John Hutchinson, Student Association President Georgia Lagoudas, and college presidents and masters, Warudkar was able to create a graduate meal plan.

"[The goal was to] ensure that all off-campus students had the ability to choose from more than one plan to best fit their schedules and other needs," H&D Manager of Communications Susann Glenn said.

One change the new plans offer is that meals will not expire until the end of the semester. Another change is the number of meals available for purchase. In addition to the 85 meals per semester plan currently offered, students will now have the option to purchase 50 or 25 meals.

Graduate students on the 25/50/85 meal plans will be assigned to a specific servery. Applicants will be asked to rank their top three serveries in order of preference, and assignments will be made on a first-come, first-served basis. All serveries except the Baker servery will be offered to graduate students, while off-campus undergraduates will be free to eat at any servery on campus.

This semester, only 125 spots are available for graduate students to purchase meal plans. According to H&D, more than 80 students have signed up already.

Wiess College sophomore Jim Sheng, who currently lives off-campus, said he would have liked the option to choose one of the new plans.

"I would have purchased the 50-meal plan just because there are other free sources for food on campus," Sheng said. "I think this plan will be more popular because it doesn't restrict the number of meals an off-campus student must have on campus in a week."

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