NC State is changing student meal plans, starting in fall 2017. Students with a meal plan will soon be able to choose from a larger variety of plans. Changes include an all-access dining hall pass, guest passes and new meal period times.
Randy Lait, senior director of hospitality services, which oversees NC State Dining, believes these changes will transition dining halls into more central hubs on campus.
“We have three new all-access meal plans that allow students to come into the dining halls any time they are hungry, for a snack or a full meal or just to hang out and study, without worrying about using up a meal,” Lait said. “We think this can make the dining halls, not only a place to go to eat, but a place to see friends and participate in social gatherings and activities.”
The all-access meal plans will allow students to visit the dining halls at any time during the day by swiping their Wolfpack One cards without using a meal credit. The system is built to check if a student is enrolled in the meal plan, and grant them access with no meals being deducted. This system will be incorporated in the Everyday Plan, the Weekday plan and the Deluxe Plan.
The Everyday Plan has 12 weekly meal credits, $100 worth of dining dollars and five guest passes per semester. The Weekday plan has eight weekly meal credits, $100 worth of dining dollars and three guest passes per semester, and the Deluxe Plan has 15 weekly meal credits, $100 worth of dining dollars and eight guest passes per semester.
The Weekday Plan, the cheapest of the new all-access plans, will cost $1,750, just $65 less than the Freedom Pass, currently the most expensive meal plan. However, some students, like Riley Webb, a freshman studying engineering, feel that the greater freedom to access the dining halls is worth the higher prices.
“I like that there’s more flexibility even if it is more expensive,” Webb said. “I don’t want to pay $8 for a plate in Fountain since each meal credit is $8 or $10.”
Students will also have more chances to use their meal credits, as the lunch period has been divided into two separate periods: Early Lunch from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and Late Lunch from 1:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m. Lait said these changes were made after hearing from students via comment boards and social media.
“Students told me they were frustrated by the length of the lunch meal period for using meal credits, so that if they decided to eat at 11 a.m., that used their lunch meal, and dinner did not begin until 4:30,” Lait said.
Several students echoed this sentiment. Rukmini Arcot, a freshman studying engineering, said the times were inconvenient for most students.
“The life of the average college student doesn’t really align with the meal timings,” Arcot said.
Lait said collecting student opinions is very important to NC State Dining, and the university works hard to make sure student opinions are considered.
“We have a Dining Committee that meets monthly, and we do an annual customer satisfaction survey of our dining locations,” Lait said. “We get a dozen or so questions and comments from our website each day. We have comment boards in the dining halls, too, and we listen to students when they tell us what they like and what they want us to change. We try to be available and responsive.”
According to Lait, starting next fall, students can also use a meal credit to purchase Howling Cow ice cream from Talley Market.
“I know that people tend to not like change, but everyone likes progress, and I think these new plans offer more access than ever before to the great food options we have at NC State,” Lait said. “The responses I have received so far have been overwhelmingly positive.”
Students can learn more about each meal plan on the NC State Dining website. Registration for fall and summer 2017 Meal Plans is currently open.
