How meals ended up as USC’s most inhospitable plan

I’d like to start off by admitting that I love to eat. It’s true. There’s nothing more euphoric than the first delicate bite of a Cronut (the shortened name for the croissant-donut sold at the infamous Spudnuts;  can you believe that humankind has developed far enough to create the perfect dessert?) or the late-night $1 birria tacos near Exposition Park. For me, food is much more than a mere life-sustaining nutrition source, but rather a love language and happiness distilled into edible masterpieces.

However, my stomach twisted when I heard in June that the Cardinal Meal Plans were needlessly meddled with. Without an official announcement or notice, USC Hospitality implemented the critical switch of limiting students to its three traditional dining halls. Underneath the high-shine gloss of the word “unlimited,” I found myself gasping at the small print. With the new meal plans, we lose. Not only will students be forced to spend more from eating at on-campus cafés, but could  Hospitality possibly be attempting to siphon a whopping $400 extra on top of the incredibly high costs we had been coerced into paying already? Surely, I thought to myself,  Hospitality knew that 19 meal swipes per week was enough for a majority of the students last semester? The dining habits of students have not and will not change, and  Hospitality knows this.

This isn’t the first time that meal plans have taken advantage of students. In an email this January,  Hospitality announced a reversal in policy that would have restricted students to three meals per day at specific time periods. Taking advantage of incoming freshmen is a low blow, even by the standards of the same people behind the decision to try recreating pho at Parkside Restaurant & Grill. This substantial subset of students with meal plans is being blindsided. 

The reason given on the FAQ section of the  Hospitality website also makes little sense: “Creating communities within the Residential College Experience is an essential part of student life at USC. That is one reason why our Cardinal Meal Plan is anchored in the three residential dining halls and we are delighted to be able to go back to the unlimited Residential Dining meal swipe plans that we had pre-covid.” As Los Angeles County continues to be categorized as high coronavirus activity by federal standards, this push for an increased density in communal spaces is reminiscent of an old, bittered relative on Thanksgiving. Stay home, Uncle Carl.

If you’re anything like me, dining halls were too far to be a daily walk from classes. Ask any Parkside resident, who had to walk 15 minutes every day to classes, if they would prefer to trek back to their dining hall for each meal. I did, and they began to weep profusely at the sheer suggestion that would be a potential predicament. 

Upon analyzing my own dining habits in the past semester, an average of 12 swipes were spent at the Ronald Tutor Campus Center and cafés each week. As someone who has formed a deep, personal relationship with the Protein Power smoothie at C&G Juice Co., it’s hard to imagine a future without it. How else would I live out my quirky TikTok micro-influencer fantasy without access to aesthetic acai bowls? The RTCC  food court has always been a haven to students, in the same manner that the Starcourt Mall had been for our favorite “Stranger Things” character, Max Mayfield. Though we may not be running up any hills, the time might be growing near for us to make a deal with God to deliver us from the money-hungry clutches of  Hospitality.

According to the Loyola Marymount University Law School, the South Los Angeles area is currently considered a “food desert,” a term that emphasizes the lack of access to fresh foods and supermarkets, which results in an increase of fast food and liquor stores in our local community. 

The Student Coalition Against Labor Exploitation would often utilize meal-swipe donations to serve members of the local community, but the changes to the Cardinal Meal Plan hinders their ability to do so. 

“So a lot of our unhoused community members relied heavily on those meals every week… and the community really grew to embrace the resources that were coming from such a resource-rich environment like USC, where students were freely giving because their meal plans would not be compounded at the end of the week. We were able to space out deliveries to the fridge to sustain visitors throughout the week,” said Nancy Shao, a sophomore majoring in biomedical engineering.  “So USC’s decision to nix this meal plan is a huge loss on meal swipe donations to the fridge this year. We’re talking hundreds of meals that the fridge no longer gets and directly obstructs our efforts to meet even the most myopic needs for the community surrounding USC.”

Along with SCALE’s work, similar groups such as Meaningful Meals and Trojans Give Back also feel similar impacts. Our meal swipes have had an amazingly positive impact on a plethora of people, and  Hospitality has effectively limited all of our community-oriented organizations to reclaim these meals as pure profit. Greed isn’t flattering, dear.

Historically, Trojans stood resilient in the face of slimy workings, and it’s our job to get the University experience we signed up (and pay) for. We deserve to have meal plans that serve the students, based on what our needs are. If we’ve been able to overcome the three-meal restrictions, this should be a piece of cake. So, whether you have a steamy obsession with RTCC (like I do) or are looking for an excuse to care about something bigger than just yourself, stop eating your feelings and let them teach you to fight for better from the  Hospitality management. Let us eat cake!