Eating at DU’s dining halls this year looks very different from the options of years past. With dining now consolidated into the singular Community Commons building, students are no longer able to choose from one of the several old dining halls on-campus. Without the convenience and choice provided by the Nagel Dining Hall, Centennial Dining Hall, Nelson Dining and others, students’ personal needs are challenged by the lack of variety.
While running a singular, centralized dining hall is certainly easier on the school’s infrastructure, the location has become a point of contention. Students living in dorms closer to the outskirts of campus, such as those living in Centennial Towers, find it difficult and often irritating to plan out routes to class, activities and the long walk to mealtime.
“I can never go there just to eat,” said Evan, a sophomore currently living in Towers. “I have to plan going there while I’m on the way to something else because it’s just not worth it otherwise.”
The time-consuming aspect of the Community Commons location is concerning. College students are young, impulsive, often under stress and focused on the moment, and many students are used to the convenience of dining in their dorm building. As schoolwork and more pile on, some students may decide to skip meals and use the time of walking to-and-from and eating to study. If this becomes a pattern, it would become detrimental for their health.
This problem is not exclusive to those living in a further-off dorm, either. Leander, another second-year student currently living in Centennial Towers reported that people he knew, especially those attending Lamont School of Music, have foregone eating meals at the dining hall altogether and instead cook or buy for themselves or rely on other ways to get them through the day, like quick snacks, the C store, or delivery options like GrubHub and Uber Eats, all of which put undue stress on students financially. Groceries for one month can cost a person anywhere from $150 to $300, money students may not have reliably.
Additionally, many students have expressed disappointment over the lack of options in comparison to previous years. Some find the meals at the dining hall—while spread out over several themed and differently styled options—cyclical and repetitive.
Anna Cromheecke, a sophomore, mourned the loss of the camaraderie of the closed dining halls and the myriad of options (and ice cream) that used to be available. Additionally, lack of options could also hurt or restrict those with allergies, sensitivities, or special needs surrounding food, either forcing them to lean heavily on one option or alienating them altogether.
While it would be condescending to suggest that DU students are incapable of regulating their own eating habits, this trend is concerning. Room and board is approximately thirteen thousand dollars of DU’s sticker price tag, and part of what a DU tuition pays for is the continued maintenance of the dining system, and most if not all students paid for a meal plan upon enrollment. If the situation of the dining hall makes planning an already busy student lifestyle almost unworkably difficult, something is wrong with that transaction.
One central dining hall is detrimental to student quality-of-life that should be noticed and paid attention to. Perhaps with an extension or adaptation of dining hall hours or an allowance for students to take home meals as well as eat them in order to lessen the commute. Students come to (and pay for) DU to be accommodated, and the concerns brought up by the Community Commons location aren’t just entitled nitpicking, they’re legitimate stressors and symptoms of a maladjusted dining system. DU has a responsibility to the needs of its student body, and it should be acknowledging this issue and putting in the effort to rectify it.
