Dining prices and policies

My assignment from our last meeting on 2/26/13 was to research:
1. What policies do other schools (inside UW system and outside) have for bringing items in their dining halls?
2. How does the pricing of our meal plan match with other schools meal plans. (This is pertinent because if other schools allow personal items in the dining hall, are their prices higher to accommodate for food being stolen from the cafeteria?)

I have looked up a few different schools including, UWRF, UW-Stout, UW-Eau Claire, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

University of Wisconsin - River Falls: (Cost per semester)

Dining Service: Sodexo

19 meals per week: $1,127.50                                 14 meals per week: $1,104.50
$60.00 - dining dollars                                             $60.00 - dining dollars
5 guest meals                                                         5 guest meals

120 block plan: 1,145.00                                         60 block plan: $395.00
$100.00 - dining dollars                                           No dining dollars
No guest meals                                                      No guest meals

University of Minnesota - Twin Cities: (Cost per semester)

Dining Service: Aramark

19 meals per week: $1,832.00                               14 meals per week: $1,726.00

$100.00 - FlexDine dollars                                     $100.00 - FlexDine dollars

10 guest meals                                                     10 guest meals

10 meals per week: $1,648.00                               150 block plan: $1,670.00

$50.00 - FlexDine dollars                                       $100.00 - FlexDine dollars

10 guest meals                                                     10 guest meals 

115 block plan: $1,770.00                                     Unlimited meals: $1,965.00

$400.00 - FlexDine dollars                                     $50.00 - FlexDine dollars

10 guest meals                                                    10 guest meals 

University of Wisconsin - Superior: (Cost per semester- data from 2010)

Dining Service: A'viands

135 block plan: $1,120                                        Unlimited meals: $1,320.00

$125.00 - dining dollars                                       $50.00 - dining dollars

unlimited guest meals                                         5 guest meals

University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire: (Cost per semester)

Dining Service: Sodexo

Unlimited meals: $1,495.00                                 Unlimited meals #2: $1,595.00

$75.00 - dining dollars                                        $100.00 - dining dollars

University of Wisconsin - Stout: (Cost per semester)

Dining Service: Done by the university, not an outside provider

Cost per meal:

Breakfast cost: $1.40

Lunch cost:       $2.30

Dinner cost:      $2.50

Can treat unlimited amount of guests. You just pay the amount for the meal you are buying them. 

Plan 1: $1,087.00                                                  Plan 2: $1,157.00

Plan 3: $1,227.00                                                  Plan 4: $1,297.00

100 block plan: $510.00                                        50 block plan: $270.00

25 block plan: $140.00 

   

I have not yet looked into whether or not students are allowed to bring personal items into the schools' cafeterias or not. I will be updating this more, just figured I would get the majority of it done. Let me know if you have any other schools you think are important to be looking at. 

Feb. 26th
Starting Time: 4:45                                                                            2/26/13
Ending Time: 5:30

Today our meeting consisted of communicating exactly what our topic was decided to be. Grace said that every semester one group of students does the gym access. We in response decided to go with our second choice of the security of the cubbies outside of the dinning hall.

A few questions that we established to be important, and need to be answered are:

1. Who is responsible for the cubbies the school or Sedexo?
2. What is the cause of the problem?
3. What is the effect of the problem?
4. What is the original reason for making students leave their belongings outside?
5. What are other schools ( inside UW region and outside) policies on the dinning hall?
6. How does the pricing of our meal plan match to the other schools?
7. Will more people buy meal plans if it is more accessible/safe?
8. Who is affected by this issue?
9. Who may be good people to interview on the subject?
10. Are people avoiding the dinning hall because of the rule?
11. Who can be contacted in the event of something being stolen?

We have split these questions up between the four of us.
Jack- 1, 11
Amanda- 9, 2, 8
Sara- 4, 10
Kaila- 5, 6

The questions that have not been appointed to a specific person will be answered as a group later in our process.

We have chosen to do a powerpoint for the small presentation.

For our next meeting we are doing an online blog next week Tuesday just as a check in to see that we are all on track, and everyone has an understanding of what they are looking for. We will have another in person meeting on March 12th @ 4:45 in the library.

Meeting Tuesday 2/19

Start Time: 4:45
End Time: 5:30

We met this evening to narrow down which topic we want to do for our project.

We decided the one that stuck out to some of us from the ones we mentioned at our first meeting involved security to student items left in the cubbies outside of Riverside Commons during meal times.  There have been some issues in the past with students have expensive possessions stolen from that area while they're eating in the cafeteria.  Students are forced to leave these items outside because bags and jackets are not allowed inside.  However, there's no real monitor or protection for the possessions left there.

A couple of new ideas were also presented.  These included having racks of rental bikes around campus for students to use on a daily basis, and having gym memberships included in tuition and optional for commuters in order for them to be able to access more training and fitness equipment.  We talked about the current situation with the weight room attached to May Hall and what's available to students at the Knowles Center. There is some question as to what the plan is regarding general student access to the proposed new HHP building.

We decided that if the gym access topic will work, that is the most favored for us.  If not, our second choice will be security for items left outside the dining hall.  During class on Thursday we will ask Grace about this and then we should know our set topic for sure.

We will meet next during group work time in class on Tuesday and if that is not enough time, we will again meet at the library at 4:45 that same evening.

Meeting 1

Start Time: 8:55 a.m.
End Time: 10:15 a.m.

On Friday, 2/15/13 was our first group meeting. Our group discussed many things in this short amount of time. As a group, we decided that everyone will have shared leadership. When one person presents their task they will be the leader and others will be able to weigh in their thoughts. Also, we will have every group member entering group minutes on our blog, as that is a part of shared leadership and role taking. We will switch off after every meeting for who enters the blog minutes.

Some rules that our group came up with include, but are not limited to:
Showing up on time
Getting work done by the group set deadline
Do your best on every aspect of the project


We are generally available to meet Tuesday and Thursdays from 4:45 to 5:45 and weekends if we need extra time to meet.

We don't yet have a topic, but our group has some very good ideas and we will meet on Tuesday 2/19/13 at 4:45 p.m. outside the library to get our topic and figure out what our first step for the project will be.