The forum held by Dartmouth Dining Services last Wednesday night on the future of the meal plan epitomizes the dysfunctional nature of the current meal system. Students were frustrated about lack of choice, and DDS management was stymied by lack of constructive student opinions as well as an inability to gauge students' desires accurately. These problems result from DDS's unique position, separated from a market that would reveal consumer preferences and which would ensure a more responsive dining service.
To improve dining service, the College should remove DDS's ability to dictate minimum student expenditures and let it offer as many or as few services as the market supports. The College could continue to subsidize certain services, such as kosher dining, which are not profitable but which make Dartmouth accessible to a larger group of students.
Such a change would eliminate the current decision-making process, which is susceptible to manipulation by small groups. Many students Wednesday night, for example, felt that the operation at the Skiway was unnecessary. Of course, DDS knows that skiers would protest if it closed the location, just as patrons of other dining halls would complain if it curtailed hours elsewhere. Currently, DDS cannot justify saying yes to one group and no to another since it requires everyone to pay equally. If DDS were open to competition, it would have no obligation to justify its wages, selection, or hours, a process that breeds animosity between students, DDS workers and the school administration. No one would hold the unenviable position of deciding whose demands to meet --rather, everyone pays for what they eat. Those who prefer more exotic food, remote locations or late hours pay higher prices.
Students also cannot make rational decisions without projections regarding the cost of particular services. Whether students prefer late hours at Food Court, for example, depends on the cost. Students are short-sighted to demand services without this information, but DDS is disingenuous when it claims that it cannot cut back because students would protest. In fact, most probably would prefer less service if it resulted in lower fees.
However, even if such information were available, most students would not bother to participate, and the system would continue to serve the most involved students. If DDS were open to competition, we would reveal our preferences each time we bought food. DDS would not need to provide special information, and students would not have to spend time in DDS meetings.
Of course, removing DDS's special privileges and obligations would likely result in shorter hours at some DDS operations, or their outright closure. However, the administration's current mindset that keeping DDS open justifies whatever additional student payments are necessary generates a ridiculous (and expensive) circularity, whereby students are required to pay involuntarily to maintain a dining service that exists for our benefit. The administration should be sensitive to the cost of attending Dartmouth and should seek to find ways to reduce that burden, rather than adding fees for unwanted services.
Competition would encourage DDS to adopt more innovative meal plans and pricing schemes. If DDS were still unable to earn a profit, it would simply go bankrupt, as most companies do when they continually lose money. It would default on Thayer's bond, a risk which creditors were aware of when they lent the money, and DDS employees could find work at the other operations that would inevitably replace it.
Another less drastic solution was suggested Wednesday night. DDS could state what level of service would enable it to break even and then tell students the cost of each increment of expanded service or extended hours. The student body could then decide what to buy. While this proposal would enable better informed choices, it would maintain the unwieldy collective decision-making system we have now. Those with different preferences would be unable to choose differently, and students who use subsidized hours and locations would benefit at others' expense.
The issue boils down to costs and benefits. DDS exists solely to provide a benefit to students. The College can best measure this benefit not by focus groups and community forums but by what students are willing to pay. If the costs of service exceed the value of this benefit, students, and therefore the College, are better off without DDS.
