On May 10, at the seventh weekly Dartmouth Student Government meeting of the spring term, senators discussed the closure of Cafe @ Baker after the spring term and the College’s plan to switch to Outlook/Microsoft-only support for future student email accounts.
East Wheelock senator Sud Paul ’27, who serves as chief of staff for DSG, said Cafe @ Baker will close after this term due to low transaction rates. Students will still have access to Fresh Zones — vending machines offering snacks, drinks and frozen meals that can be paid for with DBA — and Novack Cafe in the library.
Dartmouth Dining Director Jon Plodzik did not respond to request for comment regarding the possible closure of Cafe @ Baker. The Dartmouth was not able to independently verify the potential closure of Cafe @ Baker.
North Park senator Ryantony Exuma ’26 said he has noticed that Fresh Zone machines are often empty. If DDS expects more students to use Novack Cafe and Fresh Zones following the closure of Cafe @ Baker, workers should be “restocking them a lot more rapidly,” he said.
“The timeline for [restocking Fresh Zones] seems to be somewhat inadequate, especially if we’re looking to move off a lot of people’s buying practices to Fresh Zones in the library,” Exuma said.
Exuma added that Fresh Zones sometimes do not have “healthy” food options, especially for students with dietary restrictions.
“The calorie numbers for some of the foods are just astronomical,” Exuma said “The Fresh Zone … [is] not suitable for a lot of people to be eating and not healthy either.”
Meeting attendee Marshall Carey-Matthews ’27 said he believes that current Dartmouth meal plans are “worse value” for students than “paying for all their food out of pocket.” He asked DSG senators if they are working on solutions to address issues with meal plans.
Paul explained that DSG is developing ways for students to have “alternatives for their meal plans,” such as by allowing students to change their number of available meal swipes throughout the term. Paul added that while DDS was receptive to this plan, further changes would require discussions with Campus Billing, which he said “deals with all these meal plans and charges.”
North Park senator Issa Allison ’29, who serves as deputy finance director and is on the health and wellness committee, said that in a meeting with the Information, Technology and Consulting office, the College announced that it will make Outlook the only email software available for future classes, starting with the Class of 2030. The College currently supports both Outlook and Google for email communications. According to the ITC website, the change went into effect on April 21.
Allison said that current students will be able to continue to choose between Google and Outlook.
General senator Reece Sharp ’28 said she is “strongly against” the decision due to Outlook being “hard to collaborate with” and many incoming Dartmouth students being unfamiliar with the platform.
“Most high schools [and] most people are familiar with how Google functions,” Sharp said. “Coming into college, becoming accustomed to this completely new way of just doing basic schoolwork, is an onus that is unfair to put on so many new students.”
Senators present unanimously voted to draft a statement opposing the exclusive use of Outlook and calling for the reversal of the decision.
General senator Isla Walker ’29 shared that the Residential Operations office plans to install new water dispensers in the Richardson Hall and Wheeler Hall lounges within the next two weeks. Custodial Services are additionally planning a new initiative to make UNICORN — a local women-owned business — their new menstrual product vendor. UNICORN aims to place period products “in every bathroom stall,” according to their website.
East Wheelock senator Honiely Aviles ’28 said DSG plans to screen “Mamma Mia!” on May 25 on Gold Coast Lawn to conclude the month-long event as part of its participation in Kind30, a nationwide initiative encouraging students to perform one intentional kind act every day. Programming at Dartmouth will run throughout the spring term.
Aviles explained that the movie screening event has received some funding from School House and Dartmouth Libraries but still needs $375 for the rights to screen the movie. DSG unanimously consented to providing the remaining funding needed for the event.
DSG Senate meetings are held weekly on Sundays at 7 p.m. in Collis 101 and are open to all students.
Kailyn Holty ’29 is a news reporter from Redwood City, Calif., and is majoring in economics and quantitative social science.
