In two months, ASU officials could make mandatory meal plans a reality for freshmen starting in fall 2006.
ASU President Michael Crow will likely propose a mandatory meal plan to the Arizona Board of Regents at its October meeting, said Sally Ramage, associate vice president of Student Affairs and director of Student Development and Memorial Union.
If the new plan takes effect in 2006, the MU, north campus and south campus areas will include renovated dining facilities, Ramage said.
The McAllister Academic Village, slated for completion in 2007, could offer similar dining options.
Ramage said the goal of the meal plan is to create a study area and places where people could "come together and gather."
Research from the University of California-Los Angeles and Indiana University convinced ASU officials to make the meal-plan move, Ramage said.
"Students who are more engaged in a university tend to persist more often," Ramage said.
Meal plans already are required for residential freshmen at some universities. At the University of Texas at Austin, residential freshmen are required to buy a $1,500 meal plan, said Laurie Mackey, associate director of administrative services at the school.
"They don't have to run to grocery stores," Mackey said.
The plan gives applicable students $300 in Bevo Bucks, which are similar to Maroon and Gold Bucks at ASU, and $1,200 in Dine In Dollars to be used to buy food and grocery items in both dining halls and on-campus stores.
Mackey said the school's plan was better than more traditional "meal bucket" plans, which provide students with a rationed number of meals per week. In that plan, if students fail to use the meals for a week, they are gone and cannot be used later.
Although no definite plans for ASU have been established, students will have different meal plans to accommodate their varying housing situations, Ramage said.
Vegan and vegetarian meals will be available to students, said Mike Matthies, ASU facilities and contract manager.
A couple of "all-you-care-to-eat," buffet-style options would likely be available, while other, more casual weekly plans might be offered, Matthies said. Smaller, more frequent meals would be an option for those not wishing to eat large, traditional meals. The plans would also be exempt from sales tax charges.
Matthies said students would get a good deal because they have to spend money on food no matter what.
"If you track what you spend [on food], I would compare it to what it really costs to own an automobile," Matthies said. "I was flabbergasted how much it really costs to own a car."
Undergraduate Student Government President Sophie O'Keefe-Zelman said she thought students should have been more involved in the issue, and said she would encourage forums and discussions on the issue.
"[ASU administrators] pretty much made this decision without talking to students first," O'Keefe-Zelman said. "I can see, for a lot of students, that this might be a negative for living on campus."
She further said that ASU officials should not rely on the meal plans alone to retain students.
"There's a lot of things that ASU can do to increase retention," she said. "I don't think a meal plan is one of them."
But English sophomore Kristina Tate said she prepared her own food for herself when she lived in Manzanita Hall last year. She added that she wouldn't have wanted a meal plan.
"Every meal, I made my own thing," Tate said. "I hated the cafeteria; I hated the smell. If they [ASU] forced me to eat there, that would be bull."
Meal plans should include Sun Dollars and Maroon & Gold, said Joel Froude, a graphic design junior. Froude had a standard meal plan when he lived in Mariposa Hall as a freshman.
"I wished I had Sun Dollars instead, because you can use them anywhere, but meal plans, you can just use them on campus," Froude said. "If other places around campus would start taking Maroon & Gold ... it would be better than eating on campus."
Reach the reporter at nicole.saidi@asu.edu.
