After months of deliberation by student council members, Columbia students now have tentative locations for the new Off Campus Flex program and a date for its launch—March 24.
The idea of allowing students to use Flex points off-campus has been in the pipeline for a long time and has been a perennial campaign issue for student council hopefuls for at least five years. The proposal gained momentum in 2004 when Wayne Ting, CC ’06, campaigned door-to-door in the residence halls, stirring up grassroots support. Since then, the councils have worked in collaboration with students from all years, and with the continuing support of Scott Wright, director of Housing and Dining, to design an ideal program.
“Scott Wright has been wonderful at every point in the process. The Housing and Dining administration has been just phenomenal,” Columbia College Student Council President Michelle Diamond, CC ’08, said.
The biggest obstacle that previous student councils faced was the old University ID system in which students’ ID cards stored personal information such as Social Security numbers. As a result, the use of IDs at vendors off-campus could have made students vulnerable to identity theft. With last semester’s transition to a safer ID system, the University green-lighted the off-campus program and teamed up with BB1, a company that will negotiate contracts with vendors on Columbia’s behalf.
According to Diamond, the program “should be up and running” by the end of spring break. If any last-minute complications arise, the date may be pushed back to Apr. 1. Housing and Dining administrators confirmed the expected dates.
CCSC and the Engineering Student Council conducted a survey of the student body and, based on the results, chose a small number of vendors—one per category polled—to invite to participate in the initiative. Should a particular vendor decline, the next in the same category will be approached. This semester will serve as a test period, and additional vendors will be added over the next few years based on how successful the program is.
85.9 percent of students polled said they would be “very likely to use flex at local vendors.” In the groceries and markets category, Westside Market was the clear winner with 76.8 percent of the votes. Hamilton Deli was chosen in the counter service category with 51.9 percent, beating out the extremely popular Chipotle, which received 42.3 percent. Deluxe received 46.5 percent in the table service category, closely followed by Tom’s Diner (44.9 percent). Among service vendors, students voted almost unanimously for Duane Reade.
monica.varman@columbiaspectator.com