by Cole Hiller
It’s a very common occurrence on campus that people sneak into Cowan without swiping their meal. This is a problem for Centre, so in response, they added a sign on Cowan’s exit insisting that the door is an exit only. On top of that, they made it so that friends can no longer swipe in for each other, as was possible in previous years.
Unfortunately, the administration fundamentally misunderstands the problem and how to solve it—at least in what they have displayed with their actions. The problem isn’t that people break into Cowan; the problem is that they have no choice but to break into Cowan.
To understand this, we need to look at the meal plans offered by Centre and analyse their implications.
First, there is the unlimited swipes plan. This plan includes unlimited Cowan swipes with 225 flex dollars per semester. This is definitely a great option for someone who uses Cowan a lot, but for many students, it isn’t practical. You must pay extra money to a school that’s already very expensive, and you are paying for food that most aren’t particularly fond of.
Then, there are the standard options: the 12 meal swipes and 500 flex dollars plan, the 8 meal swipes and 900 flex dollars plan, and the 5 meal swipes and 1,400 flex dollars plan.
Let’s start with the most obvious issue. Many students eat three meals a day. No meal swipe plan can support that habit. In fact, the meal plan with the most meal swipes will only give you 3 meals a day for 4 days out of the 7 days in a week. Now one could rightfully say, “well, that’s why we have the flex dollars too.” This is a fair point, except it doesn’t really hold up when analysing the potential options for flex dollars. I love Einstein’s as much as the next person, but we cannot delude ourselves into thinking that Einstein’s can provide a well rounded meal. On top of that, flex dollars (save Champions and Flame Cafe) are not an option for dinner, because everything is closed by then. Beyond that, once again, none of the options for flex dollars can provide a truly nutritional meal. In other words, it’s not sustainable for a healthy diet. Centre College provides us, the students, with our food, housing, and places to live and study; it is, by definition, Centre’s job to take care of us and feed us properly, because that is the role of a college in the United States. Most of the students here get the majority of their meals from Centre’s services. When you make flex dollars a staple in the meal plan, without providing nutritional options for flex dollars, you are not taking care of us.
To continue this argument we need to consider who would select the 5 meal swipe plan, and who would select the 12 meal swipe plan. Five meal swipes for the entire week is an abysmally small number. That would make 21 meals in a week. That’s less than a quarter of one’s weekly meals. If someone selects this, there is no way that they are planning to be mostly fed from Cowan. I suspect that many people who select this option would rather not have a meal plan, or have some sort of alternative (which, of course, the College makes shamefully difficult to do). So if someone isn’t going to Cowan that often, they will accumulate lots of meal swipes, until they have an insane number of unused swipes. How to get rid of these? One of the solutions is to swipe in their friends to Cowan, which I might remind everyone, is no longer an option. But even if this solution was possible, it still wouldn’t be that reliable or realistic. The best way to aid people who have too many meal swipes is to give them an alternative meal plan, or meal swipe options other than Cowan or late night.
Then there is the 12 meal swipe plan. People who pick this are likely going to be eating at Cowan a lot, potentially for the majority of their meals. But, as we already established, even though it is the largest meal swipe plan (without paying extra), it will not sustain a 3 meals a day lifestyle. Because this meal plan has the most meal swipes it should give students who mainly rely on Cowan more consistency than 3 meals a day for 4 days. Normally this plan would be supplemented by flex dollars, but as previously discussed flex dollars does not operate as a functional option for actual meals.
Personally, I have the 8 meal swipe plan, a plan that is supposed to be nice in between, not too many flex dollars, not too many meal swipes. Every week, I struggle to have enough swipes to get through the week. I only eat two meals a day. I get Einstein for lunch Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I still don’t have enough swipes. Do you see the problem?
So, guess what? I enter through the exit door despite the sign, or take a friend’s ID to swipe into Cowan when needed. Ultimately, many people are stuck with too many swipes or too few swipes. So instead of fixing the problem, I argue Centre made it worse by taking away the option of swiping in for each other as it further incentivizes students to sneak in. If my friend cannot use their swipe to swipe me in, I am going to be more inclined to sneak through the “do not enter” exit door. Why does it matter if a friend swipes me in? The swipe is still processed.
All in all, Centre implementing these new measures does nothing about the problem; it just ignores it and potentially makes it worse. The solution to your problem isn’t stopping people from breaking in, it’s de-incentivizing them from wanting to break in in the first place. How do you do that? By providing practical meal plans that don’t leave students with way too few or too many meal swipes. By creating flex options that are nutritional and have a wide variety of food. Centre just installed the 2 million dollar Champions Hall—I’m sure they can figure this out if they truly wanted to.