Students Will Request Figures On Meal Plans From Colleges

Several student members of the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life (CHUL) have decided to request information from other universities about their alternative meal plans, because the students are skeptical about figures the Food Services has supplied to CHUL, members of the group said yesterday.

Frank J. Weissbecker, director of Food Services, has estimated that if alternative meal contracts were devised students choosing 14-meal contracts could save only $65 a year--a savings the CHUL members think is small compared to those at other universities presently offering alternative meal plans.

The Food Services estimates that students choosing to remain on the 21-meal contract will pay $67 more each year if the University adopts an alternative meal plan.

With the present cost figures submitted by the Food Services, it is unlikely that CHUL will vote to institute an alternative meal plan, members of the CHUL food services subcommittee said yesterday.

"Weissbecker has figures from other colleges, but we don't know how objective they are," Barbara A. Mulien '79, a member of the CHUL food services subcommittee, said yesterday.

Many administrators think the University spends too much on food and that "there just has to be a savings" on food costs, Mullen said.

Another CHUL member said it was questionable whether the food services at other universities will supply valid information. "They're all good buddies. They look after each other," the CHUL member said.

Opposition

A CHUL poll taken earlier this year showed that 64 per cent of students would prefer meal contracts other than the 21-meal contract offered now.

High fixed kitchen costs, higher costs of monitoring alternative meal contracts, and the many dining halls at Harvard keep food costs higher here than at other universities, members of the food services subcommittee said.