Senior staff members of Residential Life and Services have finalized their proposal for renovations of residential facilities and a restructured meal plan. Construction and changes will begin this summer, pending the approval of the Board of Trustees at its March meeting.
Assistant Director of of Facilities Dennis Rupert said the College is set to embark upon a 10-year plan of housing and dining renovations to be done on an annual rotating cycle. For the next 10 years the College will target specific buildings for improvement each summer.
According to Diana Roose, Assistant to the President, one initial step in the renovation process is to employ a cheaper and more flexible dining plan partially modeled after those long used by many other colleges.
The new dining plan will allow students to choose from three different meal options that each cost $200 less than this year's $3,192 yearly fee. Roose said the new One Cards students now use as I.D.'s helped make the flexibility possible.
"The basic message on the new dining proposals is that after extensive surveying of students last year, it became clear that what students want is lower cost, more meal plan flexibility and a better variety of healthier food," Roose said.
The first dining option offers students the same plan they have now, the standard 21 meals a week at any campus dining hall.
The second meal plan allows students to eat 14 meals a week in a dining hall and put 200 "flex dollars" per semester onto their One Cards.
Flex dollars can be used on a declining balance to purchase meals or other essential items at any of the dining halls or the new Wilder convenience store. The convenience store, along with a new bakery/cafe, will be located at the snack bar's current site, according to Roose.
The third option is available only to off-campus students and allows them to eat 7 on-campus meals weekly and have 800 flex dollars yearly. Roose said this will replace the lottery the College has long held, which lets 100 students go off-board completely.
"The lottery turned out to be very expensive because while it was good for the 100 students who got off-board, the other students were subsidizing them. We decided it was better to offer this third option and have everyone pay less and have to eat less on-board," Roose said.
Facilities renovations will accompany the new meal plan. Aside from the Wilder renovations, the Dascomb cafeteria will be converted into a food court serving grill offerings, pizza, deli, homestyle vegan and vegetarian cooking and a cook-to-order station. Students can also use their meal cards or flex dollars to purchase take-out meals, served in primarily recyclable containers, according to Roose.
Like the Wilder convenience store, Dascomb will be open for extended hours so students hungry at odd hours have a place to eat.
Associate Dean of Student Life and Services Deborah McNish said there is also talk of turning Talcott into a family-style dining hall at which students are served in traditional restaurant fashion.
"The students identified dining as an issue a long, long time ago and pounded us for many years to make these changes," Associate Dean of Student Life and Services Deborah McNish said. "For the senior staff, to finally approve this is the first step. We're so excited about it, we don't know what to do. We've actually accomplished an idea that students have been asking for for years."
Senator senior Joshua Kaye, a member of the Housing and Dining Committee, said the renovations are positive ones.
"As long as the renovations are done with Oberlin students in mind, and not just according to some generic formula that some companies work from, then everyone will benefit," he said.
Senator senior Chapin Benninghoff also approved of the changes. "It isn't any one item on this plan that excites me; it's that we're talking about change," he said. "The best thing about this plan is that the stasis has been broken."
Students will learn more about their meal plan options in an all-campus mailing the Residential Life department plans to distribute next week.
"Students ought to feel they're getting more choice of food, food for less money, expanded hours of service and increased flexibility in meals," Roose said. "This is just the first step. We're looking forward to making more changes as we go along next year."
McNish agreed. "We're going to add to the program every year until it's exactly what students want," she said.
Accompanying the dining changes are a series of housing renovations set to begin this summer in accordance with the Residential Life department's 10-year plan.
"We're only about nine months into this plan, and we're finding it's going to have to be very flexible due to changing expenses. But the goal is to renovate one building completely and do one partial renovation each year," Rupert said.
Harkness House is the first residential building to receive a complete renovation under the new plan.
Students' One Cards will once again come in handy as they replace traditional keys to unlock dorm room doors in both Harkness and Fairchild House, according to Rupert.
Rupert said the new locks and keys are cost-effective. "The locks in Harkness are so old that they can no longer be repaired because nobody makes their parts anymore. That's where the costs built up," he said.
He added that Fairchild and Harkness are test runs for the lock replacement system. If students give the Residential Life department positive input, other dorms will convert to hotel-like locks.
Included among the repairs will be upgrades in compliance with the American Disabilities Act (ADA). A ramp for wheelchair access will be installed on the East side of Harkness, to the left of the main entrance. The elevator and bathrooms will be upgraded as well and one student room will be made ADA accessible, according to Rupert.
Other renovations include bringing the fire alarm up to code, fixing the lighting, adding new furniture to each student room, installing recycled carpeting on the floors and painting the interior.
The Residential Life department hosted a series of open houses in Harkness for residents and interested students to evaluate possible furniture and interior decoration schemes. The department will use student input to make the final decorating decisions within the next month, according to Rupert.
The 261 windows of Talcott will also have their exteriors painted, which Rupert estimates will take most of the summer. Rupert said there is also a chance that the dorm rooms in East Hall will be painted before students' return in August.
No more snack bar: What is now the Wilder snack bar will be a convenience store and bakery by next Fall. (photo by James Cochran)
Copyright © 1998, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 126, Number 15, February 20, 1998
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