Tuesday, April 21, 1998
Officials, students debate fate of meal coupons
EATING: Proponents say program offers needed alternative to dorm
food
By Michael Weiner
Daily Bruin Contributor
The long term future of the dorm meal coupons is in doubt, as
Housing Administration officials and students debate whether or not
to continue the program.
The coupons will continue next year, according to Michael
Foraker, director of Housing Administration, but the decision to
keep the program in the future has not been made.
"We feel like we need more opportunities to discuss the pros and
cons of the program with the student leaders," Foraker said.
Foraker said that one potential reason for getting rid of meal
coupons is that the program is no longer necessary now that
students can buy a smaller meal plan and put the extra money on
their Bruin Cards.
While the Office of Residential Life has no official position on
the issue, Assistant Director of Residential Life Jack Gibbons said
that he would like to see the program continue.
"I think that meal coupons are yet one more option to students
and I would support keeping them," Gibbons said.
Housing Administration intended to discontinue meal coupons for
the 1997-1998 school year, but students returning to on-campus
housing circulated a petition which convinced officials to continue
the program, according to Julie Lee, external vice president for
the Dykstra Hall Residents Association.
Lee hopes that meal coupons will continue to be an option for
students living on campus.
"I think they are a very good idea because students can’t always
come back to the hill to eat," Lee said. "I know a lot of students
appreciate it."
According to Foraker, the meal coupon program was originally
established when students were not offered extended residential
dining hours and there was no sack lunch program.
But now, Foraker says, residence halls have extended food
service hours and students can now choose between the 19, 14 and 11
meal plans.
Students can now take the money that they would have spent on
larger meal plans and put it on their Bruin Cards which they can
use to pay for meals in ASUCLA restaurants.
ASUCLA wants to keep meal coupons on campus because the
association makes a substantial amount of money from coupon
transactions.
In its original plan for next year’s budget, ASUCLA was planning
to incur a substantial loss from the discontinuation of meal
coupons. Now the association plans to lose 10 percent from meal
coupon revenues this year because improvements to dorm dining halls
might cause fewer students to eat at ASUCLA restaurants.
For its part, the students’ association wants to continue the
meal coupon program because, according to Patricia Eastman,
executive director of ASUCLA, meal coupons are "a significant
service to the students who live in the residence halls."
"It gives them an additional choice of where to have their
meal," Eastman said. Also, Eastman estimates that ASUCLA
restaurants make 170,000 transactions with meal coupons each
year.
Because ASUCLA likes the meal coupon program so much, it
contributes 30 cents of the $1.85 worth of a lunch coupon and 30
cents of the $1.90 worth of a dinner coupon. "We count on the
revenue and we feel that it’s an important service for the
students," Eastman said.
Many students who currently live on campus and plan on living on
campus next year want to continue the meal coupon program.
"It adds a measure of convenience so people don’t have to make
the trek to a dining hall for every meal," said Kathy Jezak, a
first-year undeclared student.