Today: Dec 09, 2024

SCSU athletes are not fans of meal plan changes

Philip Zoppi – General Assignment Reporter

Southern Connecticut State University has made a change to their meal plan in 2015. Athletes are not a fan of this change, but residence life thinks that the change is warranted.

Instead of having an unlimited meals option, like students did in 2014, Southern has restricted students to a maximum of 19 meals per week.

Dom Migliaro, a member of the men’s basketball team and the Student Athlete Advisory Committee at Southern,  wants the meal plan to go back to unlimited.

“I just don’t like how we’re limited to 19 meals a week,” said Migliaro. “The average human eats three meals a day. We’re hungry and need unlimited meals for the week.”

If you spread out eating three meals a day for an entire week, that amounts to 21 meals. Migliaro and many other athletes are arguing that they’re missing two meals a week because of that, and sometimes more.

To go along with the 19 meal-per-week meal plan, Southern also offers 15 and 12 meals-per-week plans at lower prices. Robert DeMezzo, the Director of Residence Life at Southern, thinks these new meal plans provide a sufficient number of meals per week for students.

“We moved on from the unlimited meal plan to a 19, 15 and 12 meal plan because it reflects the actual usage our students use,” said DeMezzo. “The vast majority of our students do not eat more than 19 meals a week. Very few students ever went over 19 last year. The data backs that up.”

Another interesting fact that DeMezzo discovered was that if students were eating more than 19 meals a week, they were typically eating meals back to back.

DeMezzo explained that some students would eat breakfast at Conn Hall, then would swipe their meal plan at the student center’s Dunkin Donuts to buy a cup of coffee. This also counted as a meal. Although these instances were also rare, it’s something that didn’t make a lot of sense since a cup of coffee really isn’t a meal.

DeMezzo said he’s only been approached about the new meal plans once by an athlete.

Migliaro and many other athletes don’t see eye to eye with DeMezzo. Migliaro believes that he and other athletes need five to six meals a day to be healthy.

“You ideally need to consume about 4,000 calories a day,” said Migliaro. “There’s no way you’re going to be able to do that with 19 meals a week. I’ve always liked the meal plans during my first two years at Southern. I don’t know why they changed it.”

Migliaro also mentioned that some athletes may be trying to get a petition going that will be brought to Residence Life to see if they can try and make a change.

DeMezzo has said he is open to talk with any athlete that may be upset with the plan, but has no intention to change it. DeMezzo and his office made the decision to go to the new meal plan based on data and surveys that they stand behind.

Until athletes try and bring this to DeMezzo, there is not a lot he can do. DeMezzo encourages athletes to do so.

“Most of our students this year are still not eating 19 meals a week. If a student has specific questions about their meal plan usage we can look up what they used last year. The data simply does not support they need more than 19 meals a week,” said DeMezzo.

Photo Credit: Staff Photo

 

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