| How to Live in Sandburg Halls on Six Dollars a Day: Exploring the UWM Meal Plan By Drew Morton During our first semester house meeting, the occupants of South Tower chose their Sandburg Halls Administrative Council (SHAC) representative; they chose me. During my brief term of office, I was approached by various occupants of my floors with questions regarding the meal plan. By November, many residents were running out of money on the suggested (number three) meal plan and they expressed concern on the price of various foodstuffs. This issue arose at a general assembly meeting and was quickly answered with an, "it's being taken care of." I resigned my position at the end of November because of second semester scheduling conflicts; the vacant spot was quickly filled and I quickly lost track of the student politics of Sandburg Halls. This period of ignorance did not last long, however. Upon my return from winter break, I took notice of my second semester housing bill lying in my mailbox. The balance due looked correct but two of the billings looked suspicious. The first, a bill for $375, was titled "meal plan administration fee." The second, a bill for $450, was titled "meal plan number three." Basically, students living in the dorms with the number three meal plan were paying eight hundred and twenty-five dollars for food. Not only was the food poorly made, but on-campus housing had decided to over charge the students by more than 83 percent. Why were the students only receiving half the amount of food that they paid for? When I inquired about the additional three hundred and seventy-five dollar "meal plan administration fee," I was told that it went towards the payroll of the employees. Split, in variation depending upon the meal plan selected, among the several thousand occupants of the dorms there must have been some nicely paid positions. Moreover, it should be assumed that when the Sandburg Cafeteria inflated the price of a Burger King cheeseburger to $1.30 that they could properly fund themselves. As if the additional surcharge was not quite enough, the food was over priced. If the food was not so over priced, these complaints would be quieted. However, it does not take a math genius to figure out that a $450 meal plan, when spread out over the course of a semester, roughly amounts to six dollars in food a day. That is, of course, if you eat every day of the week. Split across three meals a day, this basically can only budget one deli sandwich per meal; beverages are another story. Ironically enough, the Sandburg Cafeteria charges double the rate of a twenty ounce soda for its equivalently sized fruit juice or milk. If one wishes to dine healthy, they will suffer double their allocated budget. Given all $825 of "meal plan" purchased, one could dine both comfortably and healthy. A group of students displeased with the meal plan, myself included, spoke to our newly elected SHAC senator as well as one of the chair persons. We were told back in January that this problem would quickly be discussed and a solution found. February rolled around with no word on a resolution and I felt action needed to be taken. I made a series of flyers, disclosing the massive inflation and surcharge, and posted them around Sandburg Halls (the cafeteria included). Not surprisingly, the following day I quickly took note that the majority of them had been ripped down. One student, however, utilizing his good old Panther Print card, ran off one hundred copies of the flyer and handed them out. Many were found on tables in the cafeteria, some were even posted next to the check out registers; the revolution had begun. Again, we decided to speak with a few SHAC representatives about the problem. While posted flyers and increased student awareness was a step forward, it would not solve the meal plan problem. I was informed that an "open forum" with dining services was planned for the students to participate in; this, also, was back in February. Now, a month and a half later, there has been no "open forum" and, more importantly, no solution to the monopoly held by UWM Dining Services. It has become clear that, through their lack of action, SHAC has retreated into their self-congratulation and apathy. This is not surprising. When I served on the SHAC Public Relations committee, one of our main objectives was to reward one of the members of the senate whom we thought "did the best job". I guess successfully representing their constituents was not part of their elite criterion. Moreover, many of the SHAC meetings are catered by dining services. I assume that by taking some sort of action on this problem would result in the lack of catering to their meetings. After all, nothing goes better with self-congratulation and apathy than a Coke product and a nice, greasy slice of pizza. |