HUDS To Serve Meals Through Move-Out

Freshmen, sophomores, and juniors will no longer have to go hungry if they plan on lingering on campus after finals end this semester.

Although Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) originally planned to stop serving meals after breakfast on Friday, May 27, HUDS will now offer breakfast and lunch for underclassmen at least through Sunday, May 29, according to Raymond R. Cross, HUDS Director for Finance, Information Technology, and Procurement.

The original calendar slated the end of dining for all non-seniors on the morning of May 27, the last day of exams. The last exam for the 2004-2005 academic year begins at 2:15 p.m. that day.

Executive Director of HUDS Ted A. Mayer said the premature closing dates on the original calendar were the result of a scheduling error.

“We set the dining calendar the year before and we go through it and send it to the masters to approve and work with the College,” Mayer said yesterday. “Somehow it just slipped through the cracks until a student wrote us about it.”

Erinn M. M. Wattie ’06, a resident of Dunster House, said she contacted her House dining hall managers after a fellow student posted to the Dunster House open list complaining about the early closing.

According to Wattie, the dining hall manager responded shortly afterwards, saying that select houses will now stay open through dinner on May 27, and that Quincy House and Currier House will stay open to underclassmen for breakfast and lunch on the Saturday and Sunday after exams.

Winthrop, Dunster, Quincy, and Currier will serve dinner on May 27 for the final time. No dinner will be offered to any students, in any House, during move-out weekend. Quincy and Currier Houses will continue to serve breakfast and lunch to graduating seniors until June 4.

Students who are not graduating seniors are required to vacate their rooms by noon on May 29. Commencement Day is June 9.

Wattie said that Dunster students seemed to agree that there should be food options on campus through move-out weekend.

“The consensus seemed to be that most people expected that no matter how much we complain about the dining hall that it would be available to us until we leave school,” she said.

Mayer said that there would be no noticeable costs to providing the extra few meals and that he was happy students informed HUDS of the scheduling mistake.

“I’m glad that our students are so watchful,” he said.

—Staff writer Joshua P. Rogers can be reached at jprogers@fas.harvard.edu.