Student Petition Fails to Change Dining Policy

Student Petition Fails to Change Dining Policy

Student pushback, including a petition, has not created any change to university policy.

(Students eat in the newly renovated portion of W&L’s dining hall. | SOURCE: The Spectator)

Changes to dining policy for this academic year have led to pushback from across the W&L student body.

Students remain adverse to the policy, even several months after its implementation.

Since The Spectator’s coverage of the changes earlier this fall, Lizzy Nguyen, ‘25, and Grace Rustay, ‘27, created a petition calling for changes in dining policy. As of publication, the petition had received 449 signatures.

Rustay and Nguyen’s petition lists “limiting Marketplace to-go options” and “requiring students to purchase a minimum meal plan of 15 meals/week” as changes that should be reversed.

The petition also remarks that “In a university known for its community trust through the Honor System, we believe that policies should reflect a similar trust in students to know their nutritional/financial needs best and manage them autonomously.”

It concludes by urging the “administration to take our requests into consideration by 1) restoring formerly available to-go and meal plan options and 2) instead collaborating with students to achieve their intended benefits to the W&L student experience.” 

Nguyen told The Spectator that she is “grateful for how supportive students have been … We’ve really enjoyed having students engage, whether that’s coming to us with personal experiences or checking in with us as touch-points.”

One anonymous peer counselor told The Spectator that, “during peer counseling training, we were told that the reason for the increase in required meal swipes was to fight food insecurity.” Nevertheless, the student felt that requiring students “who live in apartments or houses and have full kitchens” to purchase a full meal plan “reduces their autonomy and increases their cost of living.” 

According to K.C. Schaefer, W&L’s Director of Auxiliary Services, there are currently no plans to address student feedback by re-working the minimum meal requirement or the reduction in to-go options from The Marketplace.

Given the university’s lack of response, Nguyen remarked that, in her “opinion, we need a stronger push from students if we want our needs to be met.”