DAN QUAGLIANA
Staff Writer
If you stay on campus long enough, there’s one thing you’ll eventually hear, no matter what: someone complaining about how bad the food is.
Let that person continue complaining, and you’ll have almost enough material to write a book about how bad the Faculty Student Association (FSA) is. For context, FSA supplies the food on campus and manages the dining halls and bookstore, amongst other services.
While a lot of complaints that students share are valid, there are a few major ones that are a result of necessary policies and decisions that even FSA doesn’t like. Chief among these are the dining options available on campus — or rather, the lack thereof.
The closing of Tim Hortons has often been cited as a major pitfall of this academic year, and students were quick to blame FSA — but FSA wasn’t exactly happy about the situation, either.
According to FSA’s Executive Director Darin Schulz, the decision to close Tim Hortons came down to the unmanageable cost of franchise fees, as well as low enrollment, the seemingly end-all-be-all of budgetary issues on campus.
Last year, about 90% of the purchases made at Tim Hortons were with meal plans, which are a fixed source of revenue for FSA. Once every student has purchased their meal plan at the beginning of the semester, no more money can be made from them.
For comparison, at Starbucks, only 60% of purchases are made with meal plans, which means that they’re taking in a lot more extra revenue than Tim’s was. This was a main contributing factor as to why Tim’s was costing more money to run than what it cost to keep open, which itself was the main reason for its closure. It’s not a very good business model when said business is bleeding money.
This is despite the fact that Tim’s was one of the most popular restaurants on campus. The degree to which students have lamented its closing speaks to that fact.
“If you’d asked me 12 years ago if we would ever close Tim Hortons, I would’ve said ‘you’re crazy. No way we’re going to do that,’” Schulz remarked. “[But our enrollment was] almost twice the size [it is] today … and so it’s been a challenge.”
As a response to recent rumors circulating on Yik Yak and elsewhere, Schulz wishes to specify that Starbucks and Willy C’s are not in any danger of closing.
It is also worth noting that due to the low number of students enrolled on campus, meal plans are making less money than ever before, which is the main reason that the cost of them had to be raised this semester.
An “unlimited” meal plan, something that a lot of students have expressed a desire for, would cost even more money since students would then be hypothetically eating an unlimited amount of food. This would also lead to the closure of Willy’s and Starbucks, the a la carte options on campus.
Speaking of meal plans, another popular complaint in the community is that you can only use your plan on yourself – you can’t, for example, buy your friend a drink at Starbucks.
“New York State allows collegiate meal plans to be tax exempt if they’re not refundable, and if they’re a contract between the student and the university,” Schulz explained. “[That means] it must be for the sole consumption of that student.”
If FSA was to allow students to share their meal plans with others, they would lose their tax exemptions, which would raise the price of everything by eight percent.
One of the main reasons why students don’t make their concerns known is a simple matter of convenience. Schulz realizes that a lot of students don’t want to go track down an administrator or manager just to air criticism.
“If you want to speak with me, come to the FSA office [located in Gregory Hall]. I will listen no matter what it is,” he said.
The FSA office is open every weekday for students to go in and talk to a staff member.
“Once knowledge is relayed, there’s usually a change of opinion, or at a minimum, an understanding,” Schulz said. “We want to make every student happy and satisfied. That’s our ultimate goal.”
Students are the most powerful people on campus. They’re the ones paying the salary of the faculty and staff. This means that students also have the most powerful voices to enact change on campus. It falls to them to use that voice if they actually want to see meaningful changes happen.
Dan Quagliana, the author of this article, is a member of the FSA Board of Directors.