Three events this fall should make the undergraduate more aware of the usually routine business of eating. First of all, the board rate has risen to $590; "seconds" have been eliminated from Harkness Commons and restricted at Kresge, causing rumors of a change in policy here; and thirdly--albeit tucked into the back pages of The Student Council Quarterly--the results of last spring's dining hall poll have been published.
Whether the Council's poll will have any effect on Dining Hall policy remains to be seen, and the Council has, itself, made very little of the information. But any major changes in undergraduate eating would have to come through revision of one of two axioms of University Hall: (1) The dining halls must pay for themselves and (2) "Eating is an important part of College life."
Few undergraduates quarrel with economy, and most have nobly refused to flinch when board rates rose suddenly--even when the Scholarship Committee tended to look the other way. But the Council Report has revealed that the dining hall habit is not so ingrained at Harvard as University Hall wants to think.
In fact, over 60 per cent of the students polled favored a plan for skipping three meals a week (provided they could get the others through coupons, if necessary.) In this number, of course, are chronic breakfast-skippers, those who can afford to eat elsewhere and students who might like to try a Syrian restaurant on Sunday night, if they didn't feel they were paying for the meal twice. In a metropolitan area, eating out can be as valuable a part of college life as the dining hall.
The University is already alleviating one source of student grumbling by upgrading its purchasing standards on meat. The next improvement should be to free the student from the dining hall rut. Kresge and Harkness have never attempted to serve all of the students all of the time and yet they survive economically. The best program for College kitchens might be the suggested 18-meal week, or perhaps a six-day week with Sundays off.
In any case, the possibilities should be studied, for even if the undergraduate were to pay slightly more per dining hall meal for the privilege of skipping breakfast or eating out three times a week, the freedom would be worth the price.
