Senator for the Class of 2014 Senator Ricky Rosen is working with Dining Services on potential changes at the Provisions on Demand Market in the Usdan Student Center.

Rosen has been in communication with Aramark employees, including Director of Dining Services Aaron Bennos, to discuss potential improvements that could both raise student satisfaction with the food on campus and provide healthier and more convenient dining options for students. He used an online survey of about 220 students to gauge opinions on dining options.

"The student body's number-one concern is dining," said Rosen in an interview with the Justice. "People talk all the time about how the hours are inconvenient, how the meal plan is inaccessible and how there are not a lot of options. And so when I became elected senator, my number-one priority was to help improve the dining services at Brandeis."

The three goals of his project are to extend the P.O.D. Market's hours on Saturdays, to include gluten-free foods from the P.O.D. Market in University meal plans, and to include frozen foods in the meal plans as well.

Currently, gluten-free foods and frozen foods cannot be purchased using a meal plan at the P.O.D. Market.

As of right now, according to Rosen, the inclusion of gluten-free foods from the P.O.D. Market in meal plans is the only one of his proposed changes that is certain to be instituted in the near future.

Rosen said that Aramark may consider putting some healthy frozen foods on the meal plan, like Lean Cuisine or Healthy Choice Café Steamers. "When they put a food on the meal plan, students are encouraged to buy it, because they say, ‘OK, it's more convenient for me to buy it," said Rosen. "So Aramark doesn't want to promote the purchase of unhealthy, oily foods, but they would be willing to put Lean Cuisine or a healthier choice on there."

The extension of P.O.D. Market hours is still in the planning stages. Rosen has proposed a trial period where it would be open until 2 a.m. for three Saturdays in November. Currently, it is open until midnight on Saturdays. His proposal is still waiting on approval from Senior Vice President for Administration Mark Collins. "If enough students came in and made purchases [during the proposed trial period] then that could become permanent," said Rosen. In the survey, 82 percent of students queried said that they would buy foods from the P.O.D. Market if it were open later on weekends. About the same number of students would rather have the P.O.D. Market stay open late on Fridays as would want it to stay open late on Saturdays.

Student reactions to the proposed changes were positive. "I love the idea of having frozen foods available, because I keep missing the time period for lunch or dinner," said Kelsey Segaloff '15. "It would make it so much easier to make sure I still got my meal plan's worth by the end of the week, since I can just go get a frozen meal and eat it later."

"Those are all awesome ideas," said Alexander Belkin '14. "My best friend is gluten-free, and I know a few other people who are, so I definitely feel that that should be a priority."