A new plan for roll-over meal points seeks to eliminate the crowds of students that pack the residence hall dining areas on Saturday night.
Students living in the halls will be able to roll over unused meal points from week to week beginning winter term.
Currently, students on the University Housing meal plan must use all their allotted meal points before midnight Saturday. The new plan will allow students to roll up to 50 points into the following week.
By allowing students to save meal points from week to week, University Housing hopes to alleviate congestion in dining facilities on Saturdays, Food Services Director Tom Driscoll said .
The current system leads to students crowding the Grab ‘n Go Marketplace and Common Grounds Cafe in the Hamilton complex on Saturday nights, leading to long lines and behavior problems, officials say.
“The behavior issues that resident assistants, housing staff and dining staff had to deal with increased on Saturday nights, due in part to an increased number of people,” Residence Hall Association President Todd Mann wrote in an e-mail.
The new system will also protect students who forget to use their remaining points by Saturday night from losing points they had already paid for, the e-mail said.
Students will not be able to roll over extra points from term to term, as accounts will be emptied at the end of each term.
Although roll-over meal points may lead to more points being spent over the course of the term, Driscoll does not expect the new system to raise food costs.
“Students are very diligent about making sure they spend all their points,” he said, adding that the system will only ease pressure on Saturday nights.
The 50-point cap on how many points a student can roll over was added to prevent students from accumulating large numbers of points and then spending them all at the end of each term.
“The only potential problem that I see arising from its implementation is a rush it could create in the last week of each term,” Mann said in the e-mail. “However, with a 50-point cap, this problem should be manageable for dining services.”
Mann said the new plan furthers the RHA’s goal of better accommodating the dining habits of residents.
University Housing shares that objective, Driscoll said.
“The goal would be for them to be on a plan that fits their eating habits,” he said.
Driscoll advised students not to save too many points for the final week because Food Services reduces its stock in the last week of each term.
The idea of roll-over meal points has been suggested by residents in the past and was proposed by Adam Walsh and Kyla Coy in their winning campaign for ASUO Executive last spring.
Students’ reactions to the new plan have been positive.
“I think it’s a good thing because normally I have about 20 points leftover on Saturday, and it’s usually a big line,” freshman Cameron Seeley said.
Freshman Matt Hartzell said he typically spends all his points, but the new plan will benefit other students.
“I think it’s a good idea, but it won’t personally benefit me,” he said.

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