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The Dartmouth
July 9, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

DDS Choice Beef

We all have needs. The very thought of Maslow's Hierarchy -- hierarchy of needs, that is -- brings me back to high school psychology class. Painful memories aside, I propose a helpful hierarchy of my own.

We shall call it Isaiah's Hierarchy of Needs. Selfless, eh? In my hierarchy, Dartmouth students have simple needs. There are things we expect, demand, hope for and enjoy. While not all of these desires can or should be fulfilled by the College, it is reasonable to say that policies affecting students should receive student input and be in their best interest. We have institutions such as Student Assembly for this very reason.

In my hierarchy of needs, the base is formed by the necessities of life: BlitzMail, GreenPrint, Dartmouth Dining Services and academics. Upper levels contain the meaningless trivialities of adequate sleep, shelter, water, love, self-esteem and all that "self-realization" stuff.

Past writers have dealt with the College's failure to address these needs. I'll leave the beating of dead horses -- such as the Dartmouth social scene -- to others. Instead, I have elected to deal with a horse that is alive and kicking: DDS. My friends at other institutions groan when I elaborate on the dining options we are blessed with here on campus. The fact that you can get sushi at Collis on any given night is something we often take for granted. DDS is not the Great Satan of college dining. It is made up of hardworking staff members who provide convenient hours of operation, high-quality food, sustainable, organic and vegan options, as well as food that meets the religious needs of students. For our small campus, this is no small feat.

As we all know, however, the system is bloated and inefficient, and the inefficiency starts with College policy. Every Dartmouth student is required to buy into the system. Even students who live in the River or Ledyard Apartments (which come with a full kitchen) are unable to capitalize on the opportunity to be self-sufficient because they are still forced to buy an on-campus meal plan. Off-campus students are off campus for many reasons, such as freedom and financial savings. A required dining plan for these students is an inconvenience and, again, a financial burden.

There is a semblance of fairness built into the system. Your plan rolls over from term to term, in order to fairly protect your money, right? If the policy really wanted to ensure fairness, why not allow Topside to roll over? Furthermore, why don't we remove dining plans altogether and employ a pay-as-you-go system so that you pay for exactly what you eat and nothing more?

Students would appreciate the choice between an $8 meal at FoCo and an $8 burrito at Boloco. Diversity in dining options would also encourage cooking and the benefits that come with it: independence, community, life-skills and savings.

DDS needs to compete. In a system that affords students such choices, DDS would have to change. Student demand would decline, but it would not disappear. DDS would need to downsize to efficiently meet the needs of the real student demand for on-campus dining.

The College must create a dining policy that is in the best interest of students. It is our well-being and our pocketbooks that are affected by the quality and price of DDS. Creating a pay-as-you-go DDS system with no spending requirements would let DDS structure their business to efficiently serve the Dartmouth student and allow students to make the dining choices that are right for them. For financial-aid students, the College could continue to subsidize dining in the form of DDS credit. At the very minimum, financial aid would ensure that DDS would receive business from almost half of campus.

This is not a criticism of DDS, its hard-working employees, or even its food. Maybe I'm just an uncultured North Dakotan with a thoroughly unrefined palate, but the Billy Bob tastes as good to me now as it did when I first walked into the Hop. This is a criticism of the framework in which DDS operates -- one of coercion and unfairness.

DDS can continue to make and charge whatever it wants, serve wherever it wants and operate whenever it wants. Shortsighted dining policy, however, must be eliminated so that both DDS business models and students' best interest can come to a healthy intersection.