Over Christmas break, Cabrini University, along with Sodexo Food Services, changed the meal exchange policy. Each meal is now priced at $5.25. The meal exchange period starts at 8 a.m. and ends at midnight.
In years past, meal exchange would occur at different times throughout the course of the day, namely when Cabrini’s main cafeteria, Cav’s Corner, would be closed. By making meal exchange an option all throughout the day, it adds a whole lot more flexibility to a student’s schedule so they don’t have to worry about where to get food if they have classes during the time that the cafeteria is opened.
“I think the new meal exchange policy is a game changer,” sophomore Victoria Anderson said. “Now I can go to Jazzman’s more often than I normally would because I won’t be spending all of my flex so easily.”
Anderson was not the only student to feel this way, which is why Cabrini decided to make the change. Dr. George Stroud, the assistant VP for student life and dean of students, understood and talked about it in an email to the student body over the winter break. “Some of you have expressed concerns about the University’s meal exchange program. Specifically, many have voiced frustration regarding pricing as well as the hours that meal exchange could be used.”
Breakfast meal exchange is from 8 a.m. to 10:59 a.m., lunch meal exchange is from 11:00 a.m. till 4:29 p.m. and dinner meal exchange is now from 4:30 p.m. till midnight. The one caveat to the new meal exchange policy, however, is that you can only use it once per meal.
For instance, if a student is to go to breakfast at Cav’s Corner and wanted to go to Sandella’s at 10:30 a.m. and use his/her meal exchange, he/she wouldn’t be able to because they used their breakfast swipe already. If they waited till 11 a.m. to go to Sandella’s, then they would be able to use their meal exchange.
“I love that I can go and not have to wait an hour or so to use my meal swipe if I want to go to Jazzman’s and not the cafe,” junior criminology major Rita Alcaraz said.
It is unknown how the change to the all-day meal exchange schedule has affected the profits of Sodexo, the school’s food distributor.
“I don’t have a lot of answers right now since it’s so early in the semester. We really haven’t had time to sift through all the data,” Cabrini’s General Manager of dining services Tracy Eells said in an email. “We really wanted to increase student satisfaction [with our services],” Eells said.
