Editorial: More places to eat lunch

Some other options do currently exist, but each suffers from drawbacks. The Center for Jewish Life is barely located any closer than the residential colleges. Students might purchase food from one of the retail cafes located up campus, such as those located in East Pyne Hall, Robertson Hall or the Engineering Quadrangle, but it seems unfair to make students who have already purchased a meal plan pay extra to eat lunch. Alternatively, students could eat at Frist Campus Center during late meal, but many have class throughout the afternoon, and, in any event, it seems reasonable to want to eat lunch during lunchtime rather than in the middle of the afternoon. Finally, the residential college dining halls provide bag lunches, but many students are reluctant to deal with the hassle of acquiring one from the dining hall each morning and then transporting it around campus throughout the day. Students pressed for time, then, must choose where to eat lunch from a selection of unappealing options.

This problem could be solved with relatively little trouble. Dining Services should begin to provide some means by which students can use meal plans to purchase lunch closer to where many classes are held. Most plausibly, such a plan would make use of the already existing retail dining facilities. Similarly to late meal, a single meal swipe at one of those cafes should entitle students to purchase a set amount’s worth of food. Moreover, in order to address worries about financial losses, Dining Services could set this amount well under the cost of each swipe to the student (which is at least $10) — as is already done with late meal. The list of items available for purchase with a meal swipe could be limited to easily restocked prepackaged foods to avoid any concerns about difficulties in adequately meeting increased demand. Furthermore, the portable nature of such items would help to reduce any added congestion. The plan would be available only during weekday lunches, and to prevent abuse of the plan, students would be unable to swipe both at a dining hall and a retail cafe during the same lunch.

As the policy currently stands, a large swath of campus simply is not covered by any dining facilities that accept University meal plans. Yet almost all underclassmen and many upperclassmen rely on such locations for their meals. That particular swath of campus happens to house a sizeable percentage of the University’s classrooms, leaving some students with no good options to get lunch between classes. The Editorial Board urges Dining Services to close this gap.