EDITORIAL: CHANGE

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Food & Housing should enact semester rollover, faculty meal plans.

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Of all the institutions at Rice, Central Kitchen is perhaps the most frequently criticized. But this could change if Food & Housing acts upon some of the proposals it has recently been considering. One that should definitely alleviate student complaints would allow students to roll over meal plan money from one academic year to the next. Students would no longer be cheated out of unused money every May. However, one of the big concerns of F&H is student support.

As representatives of the student body, the Thresher staff would like to be the first to convey its support of the plan. Rolling over money, while a financial burden on CK, would free up much needed dollars for many students who come from families already strapped financially by the cost of higher education. Also, at the end of a student's time at Rice, the money could be kept by CK, as they do now at the end of the spring semester.

But before this plan goes through, it is important to consider a few things. First, there would need to be more options for meal plans so students with lots of money left over could choose a smaller meal plan. This might also require a rethinking of the progressive base cost, possibly resulting in a flat base cost. Second, students must maintain the ability to donate money to volunteer efforts, and students must not become too stingy with their money if successful programs like the food drive are to succeed.

The second plan, a plan where faculty would get the option of purchasing meal plans, apparently has been put on the backburners because of an outcry of protests. But this plan is an answer to so many problems. Students have frequently commented on how Cohen House robs the students of much needed interaction with faculty members. Having access to a meal plan, especially a plan that was somehow integrated into the current Cohen House system, would make this university into a place where ideas flow more freely. Students and faculty could get to know each other better, the associates' system would not be undermined and the university could benefit in unforeseen ways from faculty/student interactions. The Thresher says bravo to these ideas and would like to encourage F&H to make sure that they become more than ideas.

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the February 2, 1996 issue.

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