The average Oberlin student eats 11.6 meals per week on a meal plan. For students on the 10- or 14-meal plans, this adds up to either wasted or insufficient meals. In order to eliminate unused meal points, ResLife will offer a new 12-meal-per-week plan with 65 dollars in flex points monthly for the next academic year.

This change, among others, is the result of a Nov. 3 dining sub-committee meeting. The new options include monthly “guest-passes” to meals, five-, seven- and 21-meal-per-week plans and the option of a meal plan without flex dollars in order to bring down the cost of meal plans. The new plans will be available to all students past their second semester.

ResLife gathered the vast majority of the dining survey information through suggestion cards and comment tables in the dining halls.

“Most of what people wanted were changes to the menu itself,” said CDS Manager Rick Panfil. “More foreign foods than just Mexican and pasta and better spices in such-and-such.” Fewer students wanted to change the structure of the dining program.

Almost half of students surveyed said that they frequently, if not always, eat vegetarian. This is a much higher proportion of vegetarians than at most other schools in the country.

While it is easier to add additional meal plans, finding the proper balance is hard.

“At most colleges, 19 meals per week is much more than students eat, but on parents’ weekend, one mother was telling me that her son, who’s on the 19-meal-per-week-plan, still goes hungry some days,” said Panfil, explaining the addition of the 21-meal-plan.

Other ideas, such as a system by which unused meals would convert into flex points at the end of the week or an all-flex option, have been tabled for the time being due to budgetary concerns.

The Stevenson dining hall offers the best cost-per-student ratio. On a per-meal basis, DeCafé is the most expensive dining hall. It costs CDS much more to feed a student eating at DeCafé than at Stevenson due to staffing issues, economies of scale and capacity. The CDS budget is currently insufficient to tolerate more students eating at DeCafé, which would be the likely scenario if students had additional flex dollars.

In addition to being too expensive, administrators fear that more students eating carryout food would diminish the community and residential nature of Oberlin College.

In any event, the committee agreed to postpone discussions of more flex-focused plans until a possible renovation or expansion of Wilder.

This comes as a disappointment to a number of students.

“I think it sucks that our meals don’t carry over to the next week. I think all flex would be wonderful. It just seems like they’re trying to rip you off,” said College sophomore Taylor Bibat.

The next dining committee meeting is not yet scheduled. For more information, students can check the ResLife banners posted in the dining halls.