Res-Life agrees to alter meal plan

In a productive exercise in give and take last night, several Pitt officials agreed at the… In a productive exercise in give and take last night, several Pitt officials agreed at the behest of students to make some changes to campus dining and housing policies, including meal plan guest passes and dining facility hours.

During the Resident Student Association’s first annual Town Hall meeting, students personally voiced questions and concerns regarding University policies for housing and dining facilities. Directors of the major divisions of on campus living – housing and food services, residence life and Sodexho – answered students’ questions.

The main concerns circulating throughout the crowd included the new residence hall lockout fee, the meal plan guest pass policy, heightened security measures and dining options.

Many students grilled resident managing director of Sodexho Jodi Ludovici with questions concerning meal plan guest passes and the lack of dining options available at Pitt.

Ludovici said that after looking to peer universities for more diverse meal plan options, she realized that often other universities do not have them.

But after numerous complaints, Ludovici along with the dining services plans to alter the current guest pass policy for the Market Central dining facility.

Starting next fall, students will be allowed to use meal passes for themselves and up to two guests each time. Those with an unlimited meal plan will be restricted to 20 passes a semester.

Ludovici also addressed concerns about dining options over the weekend.

“We have extended hours this year,” she said. “Eddie’s was open until 8 p.m. and now Market Central is open until 2 a.m.”

She added that dining hours are determined based on traffic flow surveillance each semester but added that Sodexho will be looking into extended hours for the Common Grounds coffee counter located in Towers’ lobby.

Students also spoke about the recently developed lockout fee policy for residence halls. In an attempt to curtail the amount of lockouts, housing administration set up a policy where if a student gets locked out three times, there is a penalty fee of $20.

“Last semester, the housing and food services department recorded between 500 and 700 lockouts per week,” Jim Earle, director of housing and food services said. “If it happens more than three times, honestly, how did you get into this institution?”

Housing and food services has seen a decrease in the number of lockouts so far and continues to monitor how many students they have to charge lockout fees.

With the deadline for reserving on-campus housing for next year approaching, students wondered if it would be possible to see the configurations for the residence halls before committing to one on the application.

Since students are not allowed entry into other residence halls without knowing some who lives in the hall, RSA proposed a way for potential residents to take tours of the various buildings before forms are due.

“I think that is a great idea,” Jim Earle said, director of housing and food services. “If students want to see the floor plans then we are trying to meet your needs.”

On the subject of housing, Earle also discussed plans to open a new residence hall, Ruskin Hall, located near the Cathedral of Learning on the eastern edge of campus. He said the rooms are expected to be available beginning next fall. Ruskin Hall will feature apartments that house one to three people with a full kitchen and a 24-hour security desk.

“It will be fantastic,” he said. “There will be no RAs, so it is a nice in between that we don’t fill on campus yet.”

Students then raised annoyances with the security policy enforced at Sutherland Hall on upper campus. As the rules stand now, students who live in East Sutherland may not swipe their identification cards at West Sutherland and visa versa yet those living in Holland Hall, which has a similar north-south arrangement, can use both of their entrances.

“To my knowledge, the Sutherland buildings are free standing entities, operated as individual facilities,” director of residence life Shawn Brooks said.

Brooks attributes the concerns raised regarding “inconvenient” sign-in policy for those living on campus to heightened security.

“It is more of an added measure of security,” he said. “The percent of those who report feeling safer is well above 95 percent and we don’t want to change that.”

One such security implementation throughout all residence halls involves students writing visitors’ full addresses on the sign-in sheet. “After the Virginia Tech scare, security on campus became paramount, and as a result, we wanted a good understanding of who was in the residence halls,” Brooks said.

Some students appreciate Pitt’s heightened security. When visiting a friend in a residence hall at Carnegie Mellon University, sophomore Nila Devanath said she walks through student-operated security desks undetected.

“At CMU, all you have to do is flash one ID and an entire group of people can get into the building,” she said. “After the V-Tech incident, it’s scary. I’m proud of Pitt’s security.”

After receiving suggestions last term, the RSA presented student concerns to the various university departments and they volunteered to participate in a town hall meeting or open student forum, according to RSA advocacy chairman freshman Dan Tully.

Currently, RSA plans on holding the Town Hall meeting once a year, but it is subject to change depending on student interest and response.