Keeping the Customers Satisfied

Students returning to school last week may have noted the absence of John Jay Dining Hall's blue-and-white trays. In an attempt to lower its utilities costs and keep down the rising price of student meals, Columbia Dining Services did away with the trays during the summer. Over the years, the cost of meals at John Jay has risen, partly because of the increasing number of stolen utensils. Instead of eliminating the trays outright, the dining hall should invest in smaller trays that are less expensive to clean while working with students to ensure they return "borrowed" dinnerware.

Every year, students complain about the high price of meals at John Jay. As a result, students often help themselves to the cafeteria's plates, bowls, and cutlery and fail to return them at the end of the term. But a large portion of the $13 that students pay for an omelet and a glass of juice goes toward replacing vanished place settings. While some of the money does go toward John Jay upkeep, food, staff, and utilities costs, students pay a steep price for their thievery. Columbia Dining Services hoped to recoup losses by eliminating the cost of washing and replacing trays.

Instead of simply getting rid of trays, students and Dining Services need to compromise on ways to stop the increase in meal-plan prices. While Dining should be commended for attempting to lower costs, it must realize that doing away with the trays altogether is an impractical way to solve the problem—students scrambling from class to class should not have to wait in line several times simply because they cannot carry all their food at once. To keep costs down, Dining should use smaller trays that require less water to clean. Although the dining hall would have to spend money to purchase these trays, in the long run doing so would keep students satisfied and save money by using less water. And while students should not be stealing in the first place, Dining Services needs to make students aware that taking dinnerware from John Jay—even temporarily—only increases the amount they have to pay for food. This can be done by posting signs informing students that the cost of replacing dinnerware will eventually affect their own wallets.

It is not easy to accommodate students' wishes for both convenience and economy, but the knowledge that much of a meal's hefty cost goes toward replacing dishes might convince students to return borrowed products.