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

Issue date: 4/7/08 Section: Opinion

"All sorrows are less with bread." ~ Miguel de Cervantes

The problems that have arisen during the course of human history caused by a failure to stick to basic principles are countless. Consider for a moment the bedrock principle of economics, which is that those seeking to make money can't change the value buyers place on the money they spend.

Yet Dining Services, in its past misplaced zeal, has violated this basic principle in two ways that have proven detrimental to students. One is in the implementation of focus dates, and the other is in the All-Campus Dining Plan.

This page has consistently argued against both of these policies, and it is a relief that the new director of Dining Services, Colleen Wright-Riva, is exploring ending them both in a future policy review. Such a review would include committees from the Student Government Association and the Residence Halls Association, among others.

The idea of a "focus date" - that is, periodic intervals during the semester when excess meal points disappear - flies in the face of reason. The dates were implemented in 1989 to address shortages in inventory in the dining halls that occurred more often at that time. Anyone who has been to a dining hall on one of these focus dates knows that the same rushes happen; they just occur three or four times a semester instead of once. Dining Services ought to be able to forecast what would happen at the end of the semester and anticipate a need for additional inventory. The extra cost would be well worth the elimination of the arbitrary losses incurred by students under the focus date scheme.

The All-Campus Dining Plan, in an attempt to give students flexibility, uses confusing mathematical formulas to give different values for the original money spent at different locations. The Diamondback's Nandini Jammi reported Friday that Wright-Riva said she has had trouble comprehending how the plan operates. For all of the flaws in the dining halls, at least normal meal plans provide a known quantity of food for the price demanded. There is simply no excuse for the kind of manipulation used by the All-Campus plan when there exists a system in Terrapin Express that uses the money put into it at its regular value. It was a silly principle that gave rise to the All-Campus Dining Plan, and, given its limited enrollment, it is a failed experiment.

It is unlikely that Dining Services will ever reach a state where its food is beloved by students, and the draw of a food court or home-cooked meal loses its power. It is encouraging, though, that the new director is open to initiating such a policy review. There is good reason to be optimistic about this. Wright-Riva comes from Cornell University, where the dining halls operate with buffet-style service. Her perspective, then, is a different and valuable one. Wright-Riva is still in the honeymoon phase of her tenure as director. We hope she can use this time to get rid of these policies that blatantly treat students unfairly and inject some common sense into Dining Services' operations.

Policy: The signed letters, columns and cartoon represent only the opinions of the authors. The staff editorial represents the opinion of The Diamondback's editorial board and is the responsibility of the editor in chief.

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