Members of the newly formed Student Union Meal Plan Committee and the University Dining Services Committee are working on revamping the meal plan options that are offered to students, according to Michael Weil, senator for the Class of 2010. Weil was unwilling to discuss any specifics about the possible new plans because he said that nothing had been finalized yet. He said that the goal of the revised plans, as he saw it, was to provide students with more balanced meal plan options to choose from and to give them more "bang for their buck." Weil said that they were working to maintain the same number of meal plans in place but to change the options available.

Jenna Rubin, senator for the Class of 2011, said that the students who were working on the project are herself, Senator for the Foster Mods Amy Mandel '10, Senator for Castle Quad Mark Trilling '12, Weil and Alex Schneider '12 and Mairin O'Donnell '11, members of the Dining Services Committee.

The current meal plans available to students include the $1,400 All-Points plan, the 21-meal plan, the 14-meal plan, the Combo plan and the Flex plan. The Combo plan gives students 100 meals per semester as well as $650 in dining points. The Flex plan gives students 10 meals per week and $525 in dining points per semester. Students on the 21-meal or 14-meal plan get no points with their meal plan. Meal plan prices range from $2,361 to $2,548 per semester (not including the Village plan, which is open only to residents of the Village).

As a problem with the current meal plan system, Weil cited the lack of balance between meals and points. He said that many students who keep kosher found that they could not use all the points that are included in the Flex plan but still liked the flexibility of having some points. He suggested that a better option for those students would be a meal plan that costs about the same as the Flex plan, but included "12 or 13 [meals] with 100 or 200 [points]."

Rubin said that a large issue that the committee is working to address is "flexibility in terms of what you can use a meal for, when you can use a meal, how much you're paying versus how much you're getting."

Weil said that his service on the Dining Services Committee last year and the conversations the committee had, as well as student input, led him to realize that an effort needed to be made to reform the meal plan system.

Vice President of Campus Operations Mark Collins was also unwilling to discuss specifics about the proposed plans but said that the several students involved in the process had made convincing arguments and presented plans that would be beneficial to the student body.

Collins said that they are now in the stage of reviewing some of the proposed plans to see if they are financially feasible.

Rubin said that several ideas had been discussed, and they are now waiting to see what plans are actually feasible for the University. She said that she hoped that they would have something concrete to present to the student body by March.

Collins said that any new plans will not take effect until the beginning of fall semester 2010.

-Nashrah Rahman contributed reporting