The Board of Trustees will vote on a $30 annual decrease in the dining plan contract fee for the 2012-2013 academic year at their meeting this Friday.
The dining fee is proposed to drop from $90 to $75 per semester, thanks to a collaboration between Duke Student Government and the Office of Student Affairs. DSG President Pete Schork, a senior, said he is pleased with the collaboration and the fee decrease.
“Given what student interests are and given what financial realities are, we feel confident in the relationship and collaboration that transpired [between DSG and Student Affairs],” Schork said. “Ultimately, this will reduce the dining fee to a more palatable level while simultaneously giving dining capital in the short term. If you look in five years, you will see a marked improvement of dining on campus, expansion of student choice and a lower dining fee.”
Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta said the process toward reducing the dining fee was strictly budgetary. DSG and Student Affairs collaborated to cut aspects of the dining budget to find ways to increase revenue while reducing the dining fee, Schork added.
“It was always our goal to reduce the fee so we worked hard to develop a budget that would permit some reduction,” Moneta wrote in an email Wednesday. “Last year was the first budget developed by Student Affairs and we need a baseline year for clarity and full understanding of the budget.”
Student Affairs and DSG will continue to work together to further decrease the dining fee, according to a joint statement signed by Moneta, Schork and Rick Johnson, assistant vice president for residential life and dining. Schork said he projects that the University will lower the dining fee in 2015, when the West Union construction project is complete and there are improved dining venues.
“People in dining at Duke and [Moneta] admit that dining is not what it can be, especially the venues and spaces themselves,” Schork said. “When those venues are created, I expect significant uptick in revenue, which will lead to a higher percentage of money to Duke Dining.”
The dining fee was increased during the 2009-2010 academic year to reduce Duke Dining’s $2.2 million deficit, which accrued since 2007. Kemel Dawkins, former vice president for campus services, agreed to increase the dining fee from $19.50 to $90 to combat the defecit.
It was planned that the dining fee would be re-evaluated during the 2010-2011 academic year, but Schork said there was a lapse when Student Affairs took control of dining from Campus Services.
“There was a lost-in-translation moment when dining was transferred from Campus Services’ to Student Affairs’ purview,” Schork said. “Promises were alluded to in original discussions about how long the fee would have to be in place that were either naively believed by DSG officials or never actually made as thoroughly as they were interpreted.”
Schork presented a joint statement on behalf of Student Affairs and DSG to the Senate Wednesday. Sophomore Marcus Benning, senator for Durham and regional affairs, asked if the decreased dining fee would lead to a decrease in revenue. Schork said revenue would not decrease, as he and administrators cut various internal costs.
If Merchants on Points had been eliminated before 7 p.m.—a policy planned to be put in place in the Fall but never came to fruition because students largely opposed the policy—Student Affairs and DSG could have decreased the dining fee even more, Schork said.
DSG and Student Affairs have more opportunities to work together to improve the student dining experience, Schork said, adding that he is confident in the collaboration after the two organizations began communicating openly and honestly about the dining budget.
“Although we’re pleased that the fee has been reduced, our work is far from over,” Schork said in the DSG press release.
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