Campus ID News
Card, mobile credential, payment and security
FEATURED
PARTNERS

Oakland University plots meal plan changes

Andrew Hudson   ||   Feb 10, 2017  ||   ,

Oakland University's housing department is mulling changes to its meal plan structure that would eliminate transfer meals that are seeing students eating at retail dining locations on campus rather than visit the university's dining hall.

According to a report from The Oakland Post, Oakland's Residence Hall Association hosted two town hall meetings where students and representatives of food-service vendor Chartwells discussed the proposed changes. The existing meal plans at Oakland features meal swipes that can be used at an on-campus dining hall, transfer meals that can be used in a campus food court, and declining points that act as the dining dollar component of the student meal plan.

The existing plans offered:

  • 285 meals/semester and $50 in declining points
  • 210 meals/semester and $100 in declining points
  • 150 meals/semester and $250 in declining points

Regardless of the chosen meal plan, all students have seven transfer meals per week, which they can use at retail locations on campus including Panda Express, Chick-Fil-A, Moe’s Southwest Grill, Subway, and more. Declining points can also be used to purchase meals from these retail locations.

It's the transfer meals, however, that have seen an increasing number of meals being taken away from the campus dining hall, as well as overcrowding the food court that houses the retail locations. In the newly proposed dining system, transfer meals would be removed altogether, instead introducing significant increases in the amount of declining balance points (dining dollars):

  • 300 meals/semester in campus dining hall and $250 in declining points
  • 225 meals/semester in campus dining hall and $325 in declining points
  • 165 meals/semester in campus dining hall and $425 in declining points

The proposed changes essentially increase the number of meal equivalencies available to students across all three meal plan options. In addition to providing more meal equivalencies, Oakland University Housing also stated that part of the reason for the proposed changes is to cut down on traffic in the food court -- which houses the retail food chains -- and bring some of that traffic back to the campus dining hall. The overcrowding at the food court comes, in part, because it's the only location where transfer meals are accepted.

Also core to the discussion were concerns over students' potential over-reliance on the food court and its retail fare, rather than utilizing the on-campus dining hall. In the past, the university had set a maximum of three transfer meals per week, and students only used an average of 1.5 of those transfers per week for retail dining. But with the transition to seven transfers per week, the average use rose to roughly three transfer meals per week -- raising the issue of budgeting and the importance of properly spacing out meal plan spending and usage.

Related Posts

|| TAGS:
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter

RECENT ARTICLES

USF ID card back
Mar 28, 24 /

Caveat emptor when adding contact numbers to campus cards

The back of University of South Florida’s ID card provides several phone numbers for students in crisis or seeking safety services. Many campus cards contain similar resources, but what happens when this information changes. How do you deal with incorrect contact info for essential services? The USF card prominently lists contact numbers for the victim […]
High school bathroom

Bathroom breaks tracked by campus ID and mobile app

At California’s Fresno High, a new app is authorizing and monitoring trips to the bathroom in an effort to increase students’ time in class and decrease gathering in halls and bathrooms. Of course, this has not gone over well with students. Raising your hand and asking the teacher if you can go to the bathroom […]
Atrium Ozzi container

Atrium clients track check-out and return of reusable containers at OZZI kiosks

The push to reduce or even eliminate single-use containers from campus dining is now easier for Atrium clients. Thanks to a seamless integration between Atrium and the OZZI reusable container program, the processes for both students and dining services is streamlined. Atrium clients have been using OZZI for years, but the two systems were independent. […]
CIDN logo reversed
The only publication dedicated to the use of campus cards, mobile credentials, identity and security technology in the education market. CampusIDNews – formerly CR80News – has served more than 6,500 subscribers for more than two decades.
Twitter

Feb. 1 webinar explores how mobile ordering enhanced campus life, increased sales at UVA and Central Washington @Grubhub @CBORD

Join Jeff Koziol and Robert Gaulden from @AllegionUS as we explore how mobile credentials and proptech are changing on- and off-campus housing.

Load More...
Contact
CampusIDNews is published by AVISIAN Publishing
315 E. Georgia St.
Tallahassee, FL 32301
www.AVISIAN.com[email protected]
Use our contact form to submit tips, corrections, or questions to our team.
©2024 CampusIDNews. All rights reserved.