Seven students and six administrators met once a week for a term, an hour at a time, on the second floor of Thayer Hall. Their task was thorny -- devising a new meal plan system for Dartmouth Dining Services.
The group faced an emergency of sorts. Following major embezzlement by a Topside employee and an existing meal plan that did not pay enough into DDS to sustain the organization, the dining service was going bankrupt.
Out of that process came the meal plan system that students know today.
No large protests or spirited Student Assembly resolutions ever erupted over the setup, as happened in the past.
But students sometimes did -- and continue to -- grumble. These students complain that smaller eaters must pay fines while larger ones get free Dartmouth Dining Services dollars. Others wish they could carry over remaining dollars from term to term.
The numbers tell a complicated story.
DDS has increased sales every year since 1997. One reason is that since the 1998-1999 school year, the standard plan meal has risen by $100 " a fact that has not escaped student scrutiny.
Since 1998, DDS has made a profit or broken about even every year. Profits are reinvested in DDS, which is not subsidized by the College and is responsible for its own mortgage, insurance, taxes, maintenance and lost dishes and silverware.
About 20 percent of students pay some kind of fee on a meal plan, and 8 percent receive extra DDS dollars. Despite the high number of fee payers, DDS must still come up with the difference between $42,750 in fees collected and $81,305 in bonuses given out.
That gap -- a little under $40,000 -- is made up in prices and when students spend the roughly $125 average over their meal plan, said DDS Director Tucker Rossiter.
"Is there unfairness? Sure there is," said Rossiter, who served on the 1997 committee that gave rise to the new meal plan. "But like any company, it's fair to reward your biggest customers who spend the most."
Rossiter said he is ready to review the current meal plan system, and that he has even raised the idea with his boss, Dean of the College James Larimore.
"I think after five or six years, it's time to talk about plans again," Rossiter added.
Currently, 67 percent of students get the standard $800 plan. Seventeen percent of students have the smaller $610 plan, which includes a $50 fee. Eight percent of students have the bonus $930 plan, which has $95 free DDS dollars. And 5 percent of students have the $1,095 Big Green plan, which has $225 free DDS dollars.
The off-campus plan, which costs $440 and includes a $100 fee, is used by about 3 percent of students, and is only available to those who are living off campus.
What students think
Students told The Dartmouth that while they overall enjoy the quality of food at DDS, many question the fairness of small eaters paying fines.
Catherine Buck '04 didn't "think that people should have to pay to eat less."
Evan Skow '03 objected to what he described as "the subsidizing [of the] football team's diet," a reference to the bonus dollars in the larger meal plans.
Some students said the unrefundable DBA policy, which prevents remaining dollars from being rolled over into the following term, is unfair.
"[I'm] terribly upset that the school keeps the money I don't spend," said Nebojsa Sabovic '05.
Catherine Buck '04 said the non-refundable nature of DBA "does promote buying overpriced things at Topside."
But others say the current system is fair because it helps produce what is generally regarded as high-quality food.
"I like the food. ... Yeah, it's expensive, but better than cheap bad food," Patrick Lynch '06 said.
Some students who opt for the standard plan would buy the smaller one if it had no attached fee.
Orshi Kuti '05, for example, believes that the fee on the small plan makes it not worth buying.
Leading up to today's meal plan
Before 1990, all freshmen were required to buy the same plan that consisted of 20 meals a week, costing $1,000 a term. Upperclassmen used their cards as credit cards, paying on an item-by-item basis.
Complaints with this setup were ubiquitous. Freshmen felt that they were paying for the very existence of DDS, especially since upperclassmen were not required to participate at all. Women complained of subsidizing men's big eating.
To address students' concerns, DDS introduced a declining balance for all students. Under the 1990 system, upperclassmen were allowed to receive up to $100 of unspent money at the end of the term. Freshmen had the option of smaller meal plans, which was a combination of the meals-per-week system and declining balance.
But many of the same complaints persisted, culminating in 1995 with a threatened boycott of all DDS services.
In response, the system was again changed -- but only slightly. Freshmen could choose an even smaller plan, so that light eaters wouldn't have to put so much money down. But the same basic structure remained in place.
At the same time, new DDS fees were introduced.
The fees applied to upperclassmen's declining balances so that the cost of supporting DDS would be shared among all four classes. All upperclass meal plans now cost $400, but sophomores were charged $25, and thus could only get $375 in food. Juniors were charged $30, and seniors $70.
"The money has to come from someplace," said then-DDS Director Pete Napolitano.
But without realizing it, DDS had set itself up for a crisis. All unused DBA, except for upperclassmen fees, would be returned. The Green Card, predecessor to SA Cash, was also introduced at this time, and many students just ate off campus. Consequently, DDS lost more than a million dollars between 1994 and 1997.
The lesson DDS drew from the 1995-1997 experiment with refundable DBA would remain permanent. The dining service, administrators figured, must have a dependable amount of money to work with.
In addition, a major embezzlement incident drained DDS of at least $30,000. Former Topside employee Bob Jette, along with local video supplier Frederick Baker, reported more rentals and late fees than actually occurred and kept the difference.
In serous trouble, DDS proposed that all students have a mandatory $800 non-refundable DBA. The ensuing outrage resulted in the director of DDS losing his job and a referendum in which students voted to cut DDS services instead of face mandatory $800 meal plans. DDS cut 20 non-student jobs, mostly though attrition, and also slashed hours of operation.
In light of the referendum, the 1997 committee was formed. The compromise plan required that all students participate in DDS and that no class should pay more than any other class. Fees changed to penalties for smaller plans.
At the time, Rossiter said that the non-refundable DBA policy was intended to increase student spending.
"We knew we needed the average student to pay $800 a term to meet all of DDS expenses. But we knew from the referendum that not everyone wanted that," Rossiter explained. "The fee was to make sure everyone pays a fair contribution."
At the time, some suggested that DDS wouldn't have to require each student to contribute so much if the organization wasn't what they described as over-extended.
"The College requires DDS to break even every year, but at the same time, it won't let them cut back clearly money-losing operations like the Skiway Cafe, the golf course and the Wheelock snack bar," Kevin Higgins '00 wrote in an op-ed piece in The Dartmouth.
