One particularly important part of the administration's strategy to increase cohesiveness on campus is its plan to have Dining Services offer two free meals every week to all upperclassmen next year. The idea behind this initiative is that dining together will narrow the existing gap between upper and underclassmen. Those upperclassmen without a Dining Services' contract, whether they are members of an eating club, in a coop or independent, will be able to use these two meals at any of the six residential college dining halls. Moreover, those upperclassmen with Dining Services' contracts will have these two meals added to their accounts to be used at any of the residential college dining halls, the Center for Jewish Life (CJL) and Frist Campus Center.
As currently planned, RCAs, who receive board as part of their compensation, will only be permitted to use their weekly allotted meals in the college in which they serve or in their college's paired two or four-year college. Even the two meals that RCAs will receive simply by virtue of their status as upperclassmen will be subject to this restriction.
This policy is unreasonable, despite the sound intentions behind it to ensure that RCAs fulfill the obligations for which they are handsomely compensated. RCAs serve as important links between their colleges and other social groups on campus. In order to ensure that RCAs most effectively serve to bind the campus together, it is important that they have reasonable flexibility to maintain connections outside their particular college, especially those that they developed prior to becoming RCAs. One specific problem that will exist next year is that RCAs serving in Whitman College will have lived in and formed friendships in other residential colleges before moving to Whitman. These upperclassmen, who have already demonstrated their commitment to bettering residential life, are ideal candidates to foster relationships between the new community they will be working to develop and the established communities at the other colleges. This opportunity, however, will not come to fruition if RCAs are unfairly burdened by dining restrictions.
The administration should revise its plans for RCA meal contracts to allow RCAs, in the very least, to eat two meals per week — like their peers — in any dining hall, whether the residential colleges, the Graduate College or the CJL. Similarly, all upperclassmen should be able to use their given two meals a week in the CJL and Graduate College, which for many students serve as campus communities to the same extent as the residential colleges.
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