Dining

I want to go to a Yale where you can work dinner around your schedule, not work your schedule around dinner. Yale Dining works hard, day in and day out, to provide us with generally healthy and tasty food options. But restricted dining hours and confusing and inconsistent meal plan policies mean that our dining experience isn’t always as satisfactory as the food itself. We need to continue to work with Yale Dining, based on the recommendations in the Dining Task Force Report, to expand dining hours and make dining policies clear and cost-effective.

Yale Should:

-Extend the lunch hours of several dining halls by 30 minutes, until 2pm.

-Extend dinner hours in certain locations around campus. Currently HGS, Morse, and Stiles are open until 8pm on weekdays. Expand weekday dining hours to 8pm in at least two colleges, including either TD or Silliman, and expand weekend dinner hours until 8pm in a handful of accessible colleges as well.

-Create a 24-hour dining space, which includes healthy and comfort food options, in the new Schwarzman Center.

-Raise the value of a lunch swipe at retail locations like Durfee’s, which has not changed from $8 in the past three years. We pay over $10 for lunch in a dining hall; we should receive at least close to that much in value from a retail lunch swipe.

-Reduce the price of the 14-meal-per-week meal plan to be proportionate (in dollars per meal) to the price of the 21-meal-per week meal plan. Currently, the two plans cost the same amount: $3200 per semester. Reducing the cost of the 14-meal-per-week plan even by 10% would save students and families $640 each year.

-Allow students who do not live off-campus to use the off-campus meal plan. Many on-campus students prepare food in their dorms or eat out, and would prefer more flexibility in the meal plans they can choose.

-Add more cashiers at Durfee’s during the lunch rush, so that the lines move more quickly.

-Create a dietitian program, similar to Harvard’s, accessible to students with an interest in eating healthier.

-Update the Yale dining app, and add the capability for students to order “to-go” meals through the app.

-Create a Yale Shuttle route to Stop & Shop that runs during the week as well as the weekend.

What YCC Can Do:

-Advocate for Yale Dining administrators to implement the recommended changes in the Dining Task Force report.

-Create more opportunities to recognize and celebrate Yale Dining staff, including a Dining Staff Appreciation Day, to show our respect and love for the employees at Yale Dining who, often, work on weekends and holidays to feed us.

-Coordinate with local restaurants to offer and publicize more discounts for Yale students.

-Host delicious foodie events, through the Events Committee, like cooking classes, wine and cheese tastings, and late-night study breaks, that provide us with the opportunity to eat delicious food and support local businesses!