Duke Dining and Duke Student Government concluded Wednesday to increase the current $19.50 dining plan contract fee by $70.50, raising it to $90 for the 2010-2011 academic year.
The fee comes after about a year of negotiations between student leaders and University officials. Late last month, the Board of Trustees approved a 5.2 percent increase in all dining plans.
“The fee is really unfortunate, but charging students is the best we can do,” said junior Mike Lefevre, Duke Student Government chief of staff. “It needed to happen.”
| Semester Rate | Plan | FY2010: Total Plan & Fee | FY2010 Dining Fee | FY2010: Food Points Available | FY2011: Total Plan & Fee | FY2011 Dining Fee | FY2011: Food Points Available | $ Increase | % Increase |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Upperclass | A | $1,730 | $20 | $1,710 | $1,820 | $90 | $1730 | $90 | 5.2% |
| Upperclass | B | $2,060 | $20 | $2,040 | $2,165 | $90 | $2,075 | $106 | 5.1% |
| Upperclass | C | $2,275 | $20 | $2,255 | $2,395 | $90 | $2,305 | $121 | 5.3% |
| Upperclass | D | $2,435 | $20 | $2,415 | $2,560 | $90 | $2,470 | $126 | 5.2% |
| Upperclass | E | $2,640 | $20 | $2,620 | $2,780 | $90 | $2,690 | $141 | 5.3% |
| Off-Campus | F | $620 | $20 | $600 | $655 | $90 | $565 | $36 | 5.7% |
| Central | J | $1,245 | $20 | $1,225 | $1,310 | $90 | $1,220 | $66 | 5.3% |
The new student fee will pay for less than half of the current $2.2 million deficit, which Dining plans to reduce in its entirety over a two-year period, Vice President for Campus Services Kemel Dawkins said.
Administrative and operational changes, such as eliminating faculty and staff discounts and closing some eateries, will cover the remaining portion.
Because of the recent economic downturn, the University announced that it could no longer support the deficit, Executive Vice President Tallman Trask said.
“The fact of the matter is we were subsidizing the program, and now we lost the money to do that,” he said. “Our dining program has not changed. We’re just trying to figure out how to pay for it.”
The deficit accumulated over the last several years as a result of a series of decisions made during Dining’s transition from former caterer ARAMARK Corp. to Bon Appétit Management Company in 2007, Dawkins said.
“We opted for a different provider that committed to local, sustainable dining,” he said. “We also made a variety of administrative changes that affected the quality of the dining halls, including improving service and extending hours. We knew that this would result in much higher costs.”
DSG rejected previous suggestions to reduce the deficit, including “directed choice” and a “freedom tax.” Under directed choice, students would have had to spend 500 to 700 food points at non-contracted Bon Appétit vendors, including the Marketplace and The Great Hall. A freedom tax would have added a 6 percent tax at the contracted eateries that are not affiliated with Bon Appétit.
DSG’s latest proposal would have allowed students to choose whether to raise their student fee or subject all their food points to directed choice. The proposition was soon abandoned because students would unlikely opt for the latter, Lefevre said. DSG President Awa Nur, a senior, could not be reached for comment Tuesday and Wednesday.
The current plan also means that some students will purchase more food points. The total cost of food points and dining fee for Dining Plan A, for example, will rise from 1730 to 1820 next year. Students on off-campus and Central Campus meal plans, however, will be paying more for their plans but receive fewer food points. Meal plans typically rise slightly every year due to inflation.
“Our goal is to reduce the fee every year, hopefully entirely by next year,” Lefevre said. “We should by no means take this increase as permanent and the norm.”
Many of the long-term solutions correspond with DSG’s list of student provisions for the administration, which also include renegotiating vendor contracts and conducting all catering through University eateries. Lefevre added that DSG still considers the fee a “student bailout” to account for the failure of communication between higher administration and Dining.
“This fee is a band-aid, and we have only agreed to this because it came along with several stipulations,” said sophomore Pete Schork, DSG vice president for athletics and campus services. “They have wholeheartedly agreed to all of them, except for a few logistical issues.”
Some of the money accumulated through the fee will be reinvested back into Dining to help fund the structural overhaul. A definite plan to correct the inherent issues has not yet been formed.
“We are going to review the operations and budget issues for the next year to put Dining on a much more stable and firm footing,” Dawkins said. “[Director of Dining Services] Jim Wulforst is constantly looking to reinvent dining. That’s a commitment we make regardless of where we are in our budget.”
Because the increases only concern students with meal plans, not all dining customers will be affected by the cost-cutting measures.
“Grad students, faculty members and students not on the board plan—they’re the ones who got off easy,” Lefevre said.
Additionally, the cost of the new fee for the more than 40 percent of students who receive need-based financial aid may circulate from the University, Dawkins said.
Alison Rabil, assistant vice provost and director of Financial Aid, confirmed that the University will increase the financial aid budget to accommodate the fee increase.
One of the DSG stipulations mandated that the fee will be in place for one year with more negotiations to follow. DSG representatives will reconvene with administrators every two weeks to work on the larger issues within the dining infrastructure, starting this year.
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