By Victoria Nasibi
Elm Staff Writer
Whether it is the beginning of a new semester or right in the middle of an ongoing one, students want to avoid worrying about their dining and meal plans. However, technology is faulty and problems are bound to arise.
On Monday, Jan. 25, all students and staff received an email from Residential Dining Manager Latoya Felton regarding recent issues experienced with meal swipes and dining plans for students across campus.
The email made clear that while the problem was being resolved the Dining Hall would work alongside students and staff to resolve the issue promptly.
According to Felton, the team found that for a lot of students, “the initial meal plan did not add the dining dollars to the student accounts.” They were showing 18 meal swipes instead of 14 for the week.
Felton said that the issue had been resolved over the weekend, starting after Saturday, Jan. 27.
“We have made sure that plans have the 400 dining dollars, and meals should reset to 14 per week,” Felton said.
Felton reiterated the sentiments expressed previously in the email addressing the situation, showing appreciation for the campus community’s willingness to work with the issues.
“We would like to extend our thanks to all students and family members for their understanding and patience as we got through the first week of school.”
Dean of Students and Title IX Coordinator Greg Krikorian said that he believed the problem was related to student ID cards and the process of plans downloading and subsequently being sent correctly from the Business Office to the IT department.
Krikorian added that he was “confident no students were denied the opportunity to eat” at the time that issues presented themselves.
Junior Brionna Odell was one of the students with the 14 meal plan who dealt with the glitch the first week of classes.
“For me, the problem was more so annoying than inconvenient, not having my dining dollars at the start of the semester,” Odell said. “I can make coffee in my dorm but I like to get it from Java after class most days.”
Other students like junior Xavier Smalls did not experienced any problems personally with the allocated meal swipes or dining dollars, but is aware of general problems with the system.
“But either way, towards the beginning of the semesters is when they are notoriously tardy at providing the correct amount of swipes based on a chosen meal plan,” Smalls said.
“In addition, the device that students either manually punch in ID numbers or swipe their ID cards on spontaneously fails to function, resulting in frustration and delay in students getting food,” Smalls said.
He attributes the card swipe itself as the occasional at-fault party for the problems redeeming meal swipes at a given meal time.
For any students facing continuing difficulties with accessing their swipes or dining dollars, reach out to Felton at lfelton@avifoodsystems.com
Photo by Delaney Runge
Photo Caption: Students worried about their dining plans can double check their information on the GET app.