Dining Plan Update Proposal

Overview
 Currently, there are no dining halls open with a meal plan for students who decide to
remain on campus over Fall, Winter, and Spring Break. This is a problem because there
are many students who stay over break. Particularly, a large portion of these students do
not have cars. Eating out and buying groceries can get expensive, especially for college
students who already have smaller budgets.

Student Groups Affected

International Students
 International students are affected the greatest by not having access to dining halls over
break.
 Many remain over break as they are unable to travel back home.
 Many do not have cars to get groceries or eat at restaurants.
 In general, many aren’t yet familiar with the city of Columbia either if they do decide to
use public transportation.
This past winter break, I first-hand experienced how large of a problem this is. During the
weekend of the major winter storm we had a large number of foreign exchange students who
moved in. Due to campus being closed, there were very limited resources for students. Let
alone it being a new campus for them, it was a new country. They did not know where they
could get food to eat or how to get there. In particular, I knew one student who got lost trying
to walk downtown after dark trying to find something to eat. This is a safety issue. I believe
that if we are going to have new students coming to our campus a week early before the
semester begins, we need to have dining options for them.

Student Athletes
 Many athletes either stay on campus the entire break or have to come back early due to
practice requirements.
 Particularly, a dining plan would be beneficial to our wheel-chair basketball athletes.

Intercession Students
 Many students remain on campus to take winter classes.
Students Unable to Travel Home
 Aside from the above-mentioned groups, many students who remain in the dorms over
break simply do not have a car.

Final Thoughts
If dorms are going to be open over Fall, Winter, and Spring breaks, there needs to be
dining options with a meal plan. Currently, MU has dining plan options available for summer
housing. The summer options could be looked at to see how to develop and structure these
needed plans. To reduce costs, we could have limited hours available for all three meals, and
limited locations. Recently, MU announced their Student Affordability Initiatives for the year of
2020. This plan includes keeping all dorms open over these three breaks. This is a significant
increase over the numbers of dorms open over breaks currently now. In order to keep up with
changing demands, we need dining plan options over the breaks.