By Maegan Clearwood
News Editor
Washington College students are more concerned with what and how much they eat than how they pay for it. This disinterest in the dining hall meal system can lead to problems for both students and workers.
Food service director, Donna Dhue-Wilkins, attributes much of students’ confusion to changes in the meal plan system, which students were alerted about last semester. The dining hall made pamphlets about these changes easily available, and also lists information on its website, at www.dineoncampus.com/wc. Despite this accessibility, however, students still question the system.
“It’s usually parents who call to ask about their students’ plans,” Dhue-Wilkens said. “I tell students that my door is open if they have any questions, but I don’t see them very often.”
Instead, students often swipe their cards without questioning what their meal plan allows.
Michaela Crawford, who works at Java George, deals with such confusion on a regular basis.
“A lot of students don’t know what plan they have,” she said. “Either they don’t look into it or they don’t know how much their balance is and they don’t have enough money on their card, I guess because they don’t look into it or understand it.”
She does, however, recognize why students might get mixed up about dining services.
“We [the staff] have had meetings and they try to explain the meal plans, and even I get confused, so I think it’s a confusing system,” she said.
Misconceptions about meal plans and payment options can lead to problems for students. Junior Kristina Gavin had a difficult time working with this year’s changes.
“I didn’t realize we had to set ManageMyId up separately from our school account, so I didn’t check it until halfway through the semester,” she said.
Junior Marta Wesenberg also faced problems with the dining system this year.
“I was confused so much this semester that I accidentally bought the wrong meal plan at first, and I ran out of meals in the first week of the semester,” she said.
Although students can access information about their meal plan online, Crawford thinks there is room for improvement with the system.
“I think every student should have something given to them, depending on the plan, explaining the system,” she said.
Gavin suggested “making the website more prominent on the school’s homepage so we don’t go searching the site for what we’re looking for,” she said.
Dhue-Wilkins said that with time, students will become more comfortable with these changes. Upperclassmen may be accustomed to methods from years past, but with no major changes in the works right now, the system will be habitual before long.