At Colonial, joint plans more scarce

Colonial Club has decreased the number of shared meal plans available to members during this year’s room draw from 15 per class to 10, even though the club subsequently ran out of plans for the Class of 2009 just half an hour into residential college room draw.

“We think the economics of it make more sense,” Colonial Graduate Board Chair Llewellyn Ross ’58 said in an interview. He explained that the decision was made because the club’s graduate board felt that 10 shared meal plans per class would be sufficient.

“The first year was experimental,” he said. “We’re content to continue with the program, we just felt it was more appropriate based upon the participation in this past year and also on the economics of it [to switch] to 10 and 10.”

Unlike Charter Club, Colonial is not being charged more by the University for each shared plan. Charter announced earlier this month that it would decrease the number of plans from the 30 offered this academic year to 17 next year because the University is asking that it pay more per plan to equalize the cost of shared meals plans for every club.

Colonial will pay “exactly the same amount” per plan as it did during the current academic year, Ross said, explaining that Colonial’s negotiations with the University were unproblematic. “We’ve got a very good relationship with the University and [Executive Vice President] Mark Burstein.”

“The grad board made the change because the shared plans did not represent as valuable a proposition to the club as they previously thought,” Colonial president Beau Thomas ’09 said in an e-mail to The Daily Princetonian.

After residential college room draw took place Tuesday, however, it became apparent that more juniors in Colonial wanted shared meal plans than the club expected, Thomas explained in an e-mail to Colonial members obtained by the ‘Prince.’

Though clubs can ask members to indicate their intention to select a shared plan, the distribution of shared meal plans among members ultimately occurs during residential college room draw.

“The plans ran out at 8:30 AM for the [Class of] 2009 draw, which came as a surprise to me and others who expressed interested in the plans — especially since we had only a few more members interested in plans than the number the club [w]as offering,” Thomas said in an e-mail to the ‘Prince.’

Thomas said there were Colonial members who wanted shared meal plans but did not indicate their intentions to the club. “A majority of the 2009 plans taken were by members who had not indicated their preference earlier,” he said. “Had we known this before draw, we would have had more time and a better chance to remedy the situation.”

Once a club’s shared meal plans allotted for a given class have been taken during residential college room draw, the club cannot reallocate the plans to those who had previously indicated their preference for having a shared plan.

Thomas was in contact with Ross as well as Burstein’s office as to whether the club could add more plans, he said. But, Thomas explained, “It was too late for us to add plans for 2009, and the club decided to stick with [a total of] 20.”

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He is, however, “concerned that some of our members couldn’t all be satisfied. My sense is that a vast majority of people interested in shared plans enter four-year draw for the sake of a better chance at good housing, not for the food or the four-year program itself.”

“If Forbes and Wilson were the four-year colleges, shared-plans would not be an issue,” Thomas said. “I hope that the university would consider putting as much effort and resources in the quality of housing for well over 70% of upperclassmen who are in eating clubs as they do for the four-year colleges.”