While most Boston University students spent time away from campus last week for spring break, thousands remained on campus while the dining halls were closed.
BU closed its four dining halls at 8 p.m. on March 8 and reopened them at4 p.m. on Sunday, according to an email from BU Dining Services. The George Sherman Union and other retail food locations on campus remained open.
BU spokesperson Colin Riley wrote in an email more than 3,700 students signed up to stay on campus during spring break.
“That means more than 30 percent of students who live on campus may have stayed here for either a portion of, or all of, spring break,” Riley wrote.
Christa Nuzzo, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, wrote in an email she didn’t know the dining halls would be closed when she decided to stay on campus over break. She wrote she wished BU had better communicated which parts of campus were staying open and which parts were closing prior to the recess.
“Had I not emailed Dining Services myself, I would not have received that information,” Nuzzo wrote. “Since I am reliant on my meal plan for food, I had not budgeted to buy food for the week because I did not know ahead of time that no dining halls would be open.”
Nuzzo added she thought at least one of the dining halls should have remained open.
“Getting to the GSU is not as convenient for me as going to a dining hall,” she wrote, “and I would have to use dining points.”
Riley said in a phone interview it was “no secret” the dining halls would be closed over break.
“We only recently started allowing people to stay through winter and spring break, and now even some residence halls through the summer,” he said. “These are changes we made because of requests from students, and we’re able to accommodate.”
Riley said there would also be a substantial cost associated with keeping the dining halls open over breaks.
“On a much smaller scale, we experienced that around the Thanksgiving holiday when some people indicate they’re going to stay and take part in the Thanksgiving meal,” Riley said, “and ultimately maybe a quarter of those people actually show up.”
This can cause significant food waste, he said, which Dining Services is trying to eliminate.
Neil Baker, a CAS freshman who also stayed on campus over break, wrote in an email it was inconvenient not to have the dining hall open during break. He lives in Warren Towers, and so does not have access to a kitchen.
“I would appreciate the dining hall being open for even just a couple hours a day,” Baker wrote, “because it is quite expensive/inconvenient to eat out and make meals without a kitchen.”
Jacob Hillman, a freshman in CAS who also spent break on campus, had most of his meals at the GSU or around Boston, he wrote in an email. Hillman spent about $250 on food throughout the week, he wrote, but he understands why BU didn’t keep the dining halls open.
“It would just cost too much to have dining facilities running when so few people were here,” Hillman wrote. “Despite that, staying in Boston over break was not a bad experience for me, because I had a lot of friends with me. We had a chance to explore the city together and do many other spring break things on BU campus.”
