Diamondback Online - The University of Maryland's Independent Daily Student Newspaper

Issue date: 3/31/08 Section: News

Students at Hillel who say they are fed up with high prices and mediocre food will soon get another option - the Jewish student center has signed a contract with another food service provider.

When Hillel's contract with Dining Services runs out at the end of June, Sodexo Inc., a France-based food service company, will take over, said Donna Lawrence, vice president of kosher dining.

Some Hillel-goers said the change is a relief.

"The quality of the food sucks," said Nehama Rogozen, sophomore government and politics major, on the current options at Hillel. "I'm a vegetarian and the vegetarian options are not adequate for me. I'm not getting the nutrition I need."

The new food plan will be all-you-can-eat, in which students swipe their ID cards to enter and can eat as much as they would like, as long as they stay inside the cafeteria. Students on the regular kosher meal plan will not be allowed to take food outside of the dining hall, but can still buy a-la-carte items at Bobb's Cafe, a small snack bar inside the Hillel building, using an equivalent of Terp Bucks.

The new kosher meal plan will not be cheaper, but its price of $5,226 for two semesters will remain the same while the regular meal plan becomes four percent more expensive. Lawrence also said that because students can eat all they want at each meal, they will get more bang for their buck.

"'All you care to eat' is common," Lawrence said. "We put a lot of time and a lot of research into this. I think the kids are really gonna love it."

But some students said they don't anticipate loving it.

"All I know is that change is bad," said freshman computer science major Matis Kleidman, who said he enjoyed sitting with his friends and "mooching" off their plates - something he may not be able to do next semester because he does not plan on buying a meal plan. "I wouldn't be able to come here and chillax. They could give me almost nothing as long as I could come in here."

Other students renewed complaints about the cost of the kosher meal plan, which is almost twice as expensive as the regular meal plan.

"[My parents] say it's expensive," said Samantha Zenlea, a freshman biology and government and politics major. "They tell me I'm paying $15 for a plate of 10-cent pasta."

Despite student's complaints about Hillel's food, officials from both Hillel and Dining Services stressed they parted amicably.

Both said the split stemmed from issues with laws on the separation of religion and government. Because Dining Services is part of the university - and therefore, a public operation - officials had to clear many of their administrative operations with the State's Attorney's office to make sure they were legally sound. This created high overhead costs, said Dining Services Director Colleen Wright-Riva

"From a student's perspective, they probably didn't see as much as a strain as we and Hillel saw from an administrative perspective," said Wright-Riva.

Another problem was that Dining Services employees couldn't be associated with Hillel. For instance, the mashgiach - an employee that makes sure all food is kosher - had to be employed directly by Hillel. Because Sodexo is not paid with state funds, Hillel leaders will no longer have to contend with those conundrums.

Under the agreement, Hillel will become the only university dining hall with a private food service provider. It could provide a case study for the university if it were to consider privatizing all meal plans, as many other public universities have.

Sodexo is a French multinational food services company, one of the largest of its kind in the world. It also operates cafeterias in assisted-living facilities, United States military mess halls and private prisons.

cwellsdbk@gmail.com

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools