Dining has been a persistent thorn in the side of the MIT undergraduate community. The repeated implementation of dining policies and programs that turn into massive, expensive failures should embarrass a world-renowned institution such as MIT. Who bears the costs of these failures? The students.
Pritchett Dining
The recent failure of Pritchett Dining is a textbook example of MIT’s failure to understand student needs where dining is concerned. It was renovated in 2005 and re-opened with much fanfare. Students were told that it would foster community and provide healthy and affordable dining options; the administration glossed over the fine print of the associated Preferred Dining program.
After the initial novelty wore off, Pritchett Dining experienced a drop in its customer base and began to lose money. In 2007, the Preferred Dining prices for students were increased, making the Preferred Dining option at Pritchett economically infeasible - those who purchased a Preferred Dining plan would end up losing money. “There comes a point,” said DormCon Dining Chair Allison Jacobs ‘08, “where it is just not financially worthwhile to buy into the meal plan.” Students were bearing the cost of the failed program.
http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N16/dining.html
After further futile efforts of trying to dig itself out of the red by implementing community-oriented amenities such as a flat screen TV and an XBox, Pritchett finally instituted an All You Can Eat system, without any notice whatsoever to the residents of the surrounding dorms (namely, East Campus and Senior House). In the end, Pritchett was forced to shut down - a testament to the financial trainwreck that occurs when dining programs are foisted on unwilling recipients.
Baker House Dining Report
“We hope that MIT acknowledges that there are serious problems with the current [dining] system,” David Dryjanski ’07, a member of the Baker House Dining committee, said in an e-mail in May of 2008. “We understand that drastic changes cannot be made overnight, but would like to see [the Office of Campus Dining] increase transparency, engage the [Undergraduate Association] Dining Committee in its changes, and present a timeline for system-wide changes.” The Baker House Dining Report states that the House Dining system (previously Preferred Dining) at MIT is largely flawed in implementation.
http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N24/bakerdining.html
http://tech.mit.edu/V127/N24/bakerdining/
W1 Dining
After disregarding input from students on the W1 steering committee, MIT decided to go ahead with a macrocommunity-oriented dining hall. Furthermore, a mandatory dining plan was slapped on without any prior warning to or consultation with students in the Phoenix group: the student committee that oversees W1 planning. As the aforementioned Tech article states:
Students whose opinions were supposed to have mattered — members of the W1 Steering Group committee — were not pleased by this decision. Benjamin J. Bloom ’08, a committee member, said he was concerned that the decision was made even before the W1 Steering Group commenced.
Despite several students’ protests, Chancellor Phillip M. Clay PhD ’75 stood by the Institute’s decisions to install a dining hall in the future undergraduate dormitory. “The president’s committed to dining. I’m committed to dining. Larry [Benedict]’s committed to dining,” Clay said to The Tech in December. “We have not built in recent years a residence hall that does not have dining.”
The Blue Ribbon Dining Committee
On Oct. 22 2007, Larry Benedict (then DSL) charged the Blue Ribbon Dining Committee consisting of administrators, housemasters, and students with looking at the structure of campus dining. As of October 2008, this committee has produced no tangible results, nor have any decisions regarding dining been made. While there have been a number of efforts to gather data about students’ preferences, recent decisions by the Administration show that these preferences are not being taken into consideration.
Simmons All You Care To Eat Program
As an example, consider the recent implementation of Simmons’ All You Care To Eat program. In a recent article, The Tech states, “The AYCTE pilot that would have taken place came as a surprise to Simmons residents who had gone through a six-week trial of AYCTE dining at the end of spring term and voted, narrowly, not to implement AYCTE permanently in the fall. … Many students were angry because they felt that their house vote to return to a la carte dining had been ignored. ‘Most people’s concern was that the residents of Simmons actually got a say in this. People felt their decision had been summarily disregarded,’ Simmons resident Josiah W. Schwab ’09 said.”
The Root of Dining Problems
The Campaign for Students believes that the root of the problems with MIT campus dining lie in the motivation behind dining. In recent years, there has been a push from President Hockfield and other top level decision-makers for using dining as a vehicle for “building community”. We respectfully submit that we don’t need dining in order to build a community - in fact, many of the dorms with the strongest communities have done so without dining halls. As MIT nears its 150 year mark, the student body has already built a number of solid communities.
Community can never and should never be forced upon people, whether it is through dining halls, mandatory meal plans, or other well-meaning but misguided efforts. One cannot force community from above - community grows from within. By definition, community involves everyone. When students are given no option but to accept new sweeping plans with no evidence of whether they will be successful, this doesn’t build community - only frustration.
In the future, MIT needs to thoroughly take into account the needs and desires of students before implementing any new dining program; students, after all, are the primary customers of such programs! Additionally, MIT needs to provide its students with a range of dining choices - dining halls, while suitable for some, are by no means a good fit for all students. Dining halls, dorm kitchens, convenience stores, and affordable eateries all have their place in a healthy dining ecosystem. Making student input an integral part of the decision process will not only improve the quality of dining - it will make it more financially successful as well.
