TLDR:

This week I, an autistic student with 0 monthly income, was chased, harassed and then reported to authorities by an official dining employee for leaving JCL Residential Dining Hall with an 8oz cup of self-serve cantaloupe. 

 

 

Today I received an official accusation from The Office of UHD Residence Life for violating my housing contract by removing food from a residential dining hall without permission from an employee. Despite most generous dining hall employees allowing small items like cups of fruit, small plates of dessert and drink cups to be taken freely from the halls, this female employee has not only caused an immense amount of stress on my life, but also placed my future at this university at risk over a small cup of “unlimited” fruit included in the $6782.88 I have paid for the “convenience” to live and eat here.

I, fortunately, have access to groceries like a few frozen meals a week and small snacks through financial help from family, but this entire situation has concerned me for students who are less fortunate than I am. This story and petition is not asking outsiders to sympathize with me or wish me to be cleared of these charges, because I am in a position of privilege. This story is asking you to think of those who cannot feed themselves without a meal plan they are already paying thousands of dollars for, and imagining that person enduring the same chasing, verbal harassment and threat of retaliation that I did. I hope you think of them while reading my statements. 

What happens to students who don't have financial assistance to purchase snacks while living on $0 monthly income? What happens to a student who is hungry and has no real means of acquiring food without the meal plan they have paid to be provided by Housing and Dining? What happens to students who do not have a means of traveling to a grocery store to acquire snacks if they are able to afford it? All these questions led me to investigate UT policies on food insecurity, and find a discrepancy in their public position and private enforcement of that position in the case of students on a meal plan.

The University of Texas at Austin currently enforces an unjust policy prohibiting students who have paid for a meal plan from taking food from a residential dining hall without first paying $7.50 per meal (on top of a base $5 program registration fee) to receive a to-go container with the Eco-To-Go program. Statistics show that 1 in 3 UT students face food insecurity, yet residents paying to live and eat at campus owned dining halls are forbidden from saving “free” food to eat at a later time or at another location. With these policies, students without an income or access to groceries, or those who have run out of $300 Dine-in-Dollars and $100 Bevo pay, do not have access to food during any hour that does not fall between 7am-9pm on weekdays, 7am-8pm on weekends, excluding the 2pm-5pm preparation breaks that dining halls take on weekends and some weekdays.

This dining policy–implemented directly after the pandemic–which allows students to be reported for violating housing contract by removing an 8oz bowl of fruit from the premises, is ludicrous and quite frankly, contradictory to everything UT Austin claims to stand for. UT Austin publicly promises to fight for for students with food insecurity, but the university leaves their paying residents hungry at the end of the night. Here are some comments I have received to open your eyes to how negatively this has affected UT students:

• "I went many months at UT facing food insecurity, including months where I lived in Kins just above a dining hall. The pricing of food is outrageous and I hated being forced to eat in the hall or pay the steep price for the to-go containers. There were times I couldn’t focus on my classwork because I didn’t know where my next meal would come from." - Petition supporter and student
   
• "I’ve gone hungry far too many times because of the dining hall policies and it’s not right considering I had to take out a loan just to afford to eat there! Students should have the right to use what they paid for to its fullest extent." - Petition supporter and past resident
   
• "I skipped lunch a lot last year because I didn't feel like or simply did not have the time to go back to kins. Now I always have a meal in my lunchbox and don't skip meals because I actually have a choice of whether I have food with me or not." - Petition supporter who has found it easier to eat while living outside of campus residence halls.

The money hungry changes to dining regulations were made in order to promote the unaffordable Eco-To-Go program and need to be undone. Please sign and share this petition to urge the University of Texas at Austin to allow students the freedom to eat the food they have already paid for. (Refer to Conclusion at bottom of page to see what you're signing for)

 

The Long Story

Dining and Eco-To-Go

According to page 17 of the 2022-2023 Residence Hall Manual, sent to me by UHD informing me of my violations to housing contract: "Meals served in residential dining venues are buffet style; however, no food is permitted to be taken from the residential dining venues unless approved by dining staff." This rule is followed by "Current rules for permissible to-go meals and individual items can be found on the Dining website."

Upon clicking this link you will not see a list of "permissable to-go meals," however you will find a link to promote the Eco-To-Go program, which invites you to "Learn about the dining convenience services we offer to streamline your experience including the Eco2Go program and mobile ordering."

Without participating in the Eco-To-Go program, there are no “acceptable to-go meals,” as claimed by the manual. The Eco-To-Go program claims to offer a "convenient and reusable container to take your meal out of the dining halls..." and "dine at your convenience whenever you like." 

However, it costs $5 to register for the program, and an additional $7.50 each time you claim your container. In order to eat 3 meals a day, for 30 days under this program, you would owe the University $675, on top of the cost of your housing and dining. The container must be returned to the dining hall to be cleaned, and you must get a new container each time you dine. In addition, you must take your meal to go, and are prohibited from eating the meal inside the residential dining hall. "If you choose to dine in, you cannot get an Eco container." If a student wished to eat in the dining hall with their friends, but also save a snack for later, they are prohibited from fulfilling that goal. The changes to the Eco-To-Go program and policies regarding removing food were only recently implemented following the pandemic

What does this mean for students?

Without a $7.50 container each meal, we are prohibited from taking any food paid for with a meal plan out of a residential dining hall. Despite UT Austin's advocacy for students with food insecurity,  the university denies paying residents the ability to save food for a later time. Using the previous link (published by the official Dean of Students, mind you) I ask that you pay close attention to the line stating that "37.7% of UT students have experienced some form of food insecurity."

There are students like me paying to live and eat at campus owned facilities who do not have an income, and do not have the means to buy groceries or purchase food daily at other facilities. The $6782.88 students have likely paid only covers $100 in Bevo Pay and $300 in Dine in Dollars. But an $8 combo at the Union Chick-fil-A once daily for a month would cost $240. By October I would have been out of money. Campus convenience stores are not cheap, a snickers bar costs around $3 at the Jester Market. If I wanted my cantaloupe to-go legally, I could always get a plastic cup at a cafe for $7! Obviously none of these options are affordable or as healthy as a cup of JCL fruit would have been. In addition, locations on campus that accept Bevo Pay or Dine in Dollars close relatively early, and do not stay open much longer than the dining halls. For reference, Jester Marker closes at 10pm. 

These policies are simply strange considering UT’s stance on food insecurity and inclusivity. The price of housing and tuition is far too expensive to deny students on a meal-plan from taking healthy snacks to another location. With these rules, you must pay for overpriced, unhealthy food or always eat in the dining hall, no matter what. This policy leaves no room for a student running late to class, or one with a 15 minute period to get to their next class; you cannot take a free snack to solve these problems, or else you could be reported like I was. Being hungry at a time that does not fall between the inconvenient hours of 7am-9pm (or 8pm closing time on weekends, with a period between 2pm-5pm where the dining halls close to prepare for dinner) is simply prohibited. 

This week, I have learned that without that aforementioned $7.50 container, students like me are allowed to be accosted, verbally harassed and then reported by a dining hall employee for violating their housing contract.

My story:

I am an autistic student with 0 income attending the University of Texas at Austin. Again, I do have the privilege to access some groceries, so please read this story with less fortunate students than me in mind.

On Monday, November 7, 2022, was chased and berated by a female Housing and Dining employee for attempting to leave the Jester City Limits dining hall with an 8oz cup of cantaloupe. She positioned herself in front of me in a position similar to a defensive basketball player to block me from leaving. She aggressively announced that I must finish the fruit inside. Overstimulated and overwhelmed by both the confrontation and the attention from surrounding students that the employee had drawn towards me, I attempted to remove myself from the situation by walking away. Overly stressful and confrontational situations tend to end poorly, in either unintentional rage or tears for me due to my autism, and escaping the situation is a coping mechanism all professionals teach you to use to avoid losing control. I was messaged by a friend later that his roommate saw this confrontation and thought I had been arrested.

The following day, when I attempted to swipe-in to the J2 dining hall for breakfast, the same employee took my ID without consent and wrote my name and information down to file a report against me. Today, on Wednesday, November 9, 2022, I received an email from The Office of UHD Residence Life stating that I must schedule a meeting to address two violations to my housing contract: Removing food from a residential dining venue and failure to comply with a university official. I have been told due to these infractions:

“We must schedule a meeting as soon as possible to resolve this matter. Please email Nick Wymer-Santiago within two days of the date of this message to schedule an appointment… The purpose of this meeting is to speak with you about community expectations and processes, review the information we received, and give you an opportunity to respond.”

I am unsure what these violations entail for my future at UT, as the email does not address any possible disciplinary actions to be taken by UHD after the meeting. Whether I will be revoked access to current or future housing and dining access, or receive academic consequences is unknown to me as of now. 

I posted about this situation to social media, and was informed that the employee who chose to report me over a cup of fruit has a history of aggressive behavior towards students over minor mistakes. Students claimed she has yelled at them for covering the photo on their ID when tapping-in to the dining hall, in a manner which made them severely uncomfortable.

Another student claimed she grabbed his wrist, called security and physically held him until security arrived to remove him from the premises when he attempted to use his friend’s dining pass while the friend with the meal plan stood next to him. The correct solution for this from the employee was to inform the student that, as per the housing manual (pg 17): “You may swipe guests in under your meal plan by using your available Dine In Dollars balance, but you may not give your ID card to others to use your plan in your absence.” Since the friend was present, the employee had no authority to assault the student and call security to remove him. She should have resorted to conflict resolution.

I have never had a problem with any other employee, as they have all acted on a precedent that small items (desserts, cups of fruit, drinks) are permissible to take to-go. Quite frankly, I believe this employee reported me solely due to the fact that her ego was hurt when I left the confrontation. Please imagine a student with zero access to food experiencing the following situation:

Seeing her the day after she confronted me gave her an opportunity to act on this emotion. Instead of setting up the mechanism for student to tap in to enter the dining hall, she required us to hand her the ID so she could swipe it on the computer. I complied and offered my ID, which she snatched, scribbled down my name, aggressively stated “you’re getting reported!” in a prideful tone and then abandoned the front desk to take the report to an office while a line of students formed behind me. As she walked away, another employee called out “was that her?” to which the female employee replied “yep!” She was proud. This is not only unjust treatment, but would be beyond terrifying for a student not only worried about accessing food, but now concerned for their pre-paid living situation and academic position. And this employee was ecstatic.

While I am not here to address UT policies on compliance and repercussions for disobedience, which I was also accused of violating, the regulations on this leave room for employees to abuse their power to enforce punishment for something so criminal as taking a cup of fruit to one's dorm. I am at risk of god-knows-what because of this cup of fruit, and any single student who runs into this employee could face the same. I don’t think I’m alone in believing this entire situation is insane.

I chose to stay in a dorm for a second year because I believed it would be a more convenient and safe living/dining situation than living in West Campus. Wampus is often riddled with crime, it is unsafe to walk alone in the area past sunset, and the time to get from an apartment to class could be anywhere between 10-30 minutes. But UHD’s policies are making dorm life look a lot less convenient than they claim to be.

Hopefully those who have read this story agree with many of us students that we need to overrule the dining policy prohibiting students from taking dining-hall food to go. Please join us in urging UT to change these strict, harsh, and unwelcoming policies.

The Takeaway

Join us in urging UT Austin to allow students whom pay for a meal plan to remove approved snacks without fear of retaliation or punishment from employees

1 in 3 students at UT Austin reported food insecurity in 2020–meaning they did not have stable access to food. But this statistic did *not* include those students who rely solely on the prepaid meal plans for food to eat. Students on a meal plan are considered food-stable, because they are offered dining options.

Yet the students paying for this meal plan are legally allowed to be reported for theft and disobedience, placing their future at stake, if they are caught taking a snack out of the dining halls they have paid to attend by an employee in a bad mood. This is considered a violation of your housing contract, unless of course the student pays $7.50 per meal for a to-go container through the Eco-To-Go program.

Dining halls are open from 7am-9pm on weekdays. They are only open 7am-8pm on weekends, during which they close from 2pm-5pm for the switch from lunch to dinner. If a student on a meal plan is without the ability to purchase food and has also run out of Dine-in-Dollars or Bevo Pay, they have to travel to the UT Outpost to find something to eat, when they could have taken a snack from the dining halls they pay to attend. Some students manage to hide food in their backpacks for later. But this is a ridiculous measure we must take. We are reduced to the methods of thieves for “smuggling” food we pay for.

The restriction on taking food to-go without the Eco-To-Go program is a money-hungry attempt from UT Austin to milk students already paying over $10k a semester for even more than they are already required. Allowing employees to report and harass a student over a cup of fruit in the name of enforcing this rule represents an abhorrent abuse of power and needs to be addressed.

I would like to remind you that UT Austin ignores sexual assault allegations (source 1... source 2... source 3...) but considers an 8oz cup of fruit a violation worth considering

Conclusion: A Course of Action: 

What do we want done? What am I signing this petition for? What can UT Austin even change?

Please help me in urging Housing and Dining offices to re-write this regulation on pg 17 of the Housing Manual: "no food is permitted to be taken from the residential dining venues unless approved by dining staff." This action should be done to align with UT Austin's public stance on supporting food insecure students, even those who struggle to find food while paying for their dining plan. There are a plethora of situations which make accessing food within proper dining hall hours a difficult task, and we need to begin taking action to solve this.

Request #1 : Officially approve food items to be removed from the dining halls, and train all employees to follow this precedent!

• Employees must be consistent on which food items are and are not acceptable to remove from the dining halls, so that punishment is not dealt when one employee enforces a different standard. Snacks like deserts, cups of fruit, single fruits like apples and bananas and drinks should absolutely be permissible items to to take on the go without fear of violating their housing contract if an employee chooses to report them.

Request #2: Remove the $7.50 charge per use for an Eco-To-Go container, and revert the program to its original state, prior to the pandemic.

• The Eco-To-Go program was originally intended to prevent plastic and paper waste, (hence the ECO in its name) however post pandemic it was changed to its current money-hungry state. Prior to the pandemic you paid a flat $5 fee for a chip; the chip was delivered to the front desk in return for a container. The container was then turned in to the desk in exchange for another chip. Now you must pay the $7.50 fee each time you use the chip. This must be overturned. A one time reasonable fee to use the program would be a fair way to allow students to utilize their meal plans in a way that is convenient and does not require us to resort to thieves in order to obtain food for later.

Request #3: Implement a larger quantity of major Outposts for students to find free groceries without traveling to the opposite side of campus. Even better, place a pantry at each residence hall.

• UT Austin's current solution for food insecurity is a food pantry called the UT Outpost, located on Dean Keaton street. This is a major walk from any residence halls near Jester, (the location of JCL and J2, close to San Jacinto, Prathers, Roberts, etc) which makes it less convenient than taking snacks from the dining hall. There are satellite locations, with smaller selections of food at various points on campus, but the Outpost is where most of the free groceries can be found. 
  To solve this distance, it would be completely logical to place food pantries at every residence hall, so getting groceries is not only convenient, but accessible for students with physical disabilities preventing them from traveling the great distance.

Request #4: UT offers a percentage of it's housing and dining profits into free pantries.

• If UT funnels a percentage of its profits into these outposts, stocking the shelves would be less reliant on student donations, and more institutionally supported. If UT claims to be pro-support for food insecurity, they must put their money where their mouths are.

Request #5: Host donation opportunities and food drive booths on UT football game days, near the stadium and advertise the food drives to all major sporting media sources. (AND Incentivize the act of giving)

• I suggest we open the opportunity to donate to the entire Austin community. If fans traveling to campus truly wish to support the Longhorns and UT Austin, I absolutely believe they will be more generous towards supporting the school's students as well. Patriotism for the school will undoubtedly draw at least some attention for donating, more than what UT currently draws. Make solving food insecurity synonymous for loving the Longhorns.
• Do you have pride in your team? Then donate to our underprivileged students today!
• How to increase participation? Easy, I'll solve that in second:
  •  Incentivize donation from fans: Host giveaways in return for donations at these events. Sports gear, a better seat at the game, all of these would incentivize generosity and philanthropy.
  • Social psychology research strongly suggests that incentives promote prosocial, giving behaviors:
    • "Charitable giving, or philanthropy, includes both small-scale donations (dropping your change in the plastic container at the grocery store counter) or large monetary donations (making a large gift to endow an annual scholarship at your local university).... people in the United States tend to feel that they have something to gain by giving, whether tax credits and deductions, enhanced social status, or something else."

All of these solutions are easy, not overly difficult to impliment, and come at very little cost to University of Texas at Austin. If the school truly wishes to stand with food-insecure students, they will jump at the possibility to support those who are also paying to live and eat here.

Thank you for your time, if you read all the way, thank you for not giving up on my writing skills. Please consider emailing and calling those who have the ability to advocate for food insecure students:

UT Housing Office: (Open Monday - Friday 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.)

• Phone: 512-471-3136
• housing@austin.utexas.edu

Associate Vice President's Office Dr. Marilyn Tyus:: (M-F 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.)

• Phone: 512-471-8631
• mtyus@austin.utexas.edu

Dining Office (email only)

• dining@austin.utexas.edu

UT Outpost:

• utoutpost@austin.utexas.edu
• Phone: 512-471-6242
• Hours:
  • Monday: Closed
    Tuesday: 2 - 6 p.m.
    Wednesday: 2 - 5 p.m.
    Thursday: 2 - 6 p.m.
    Friday: 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.
    Saturday: 12 - 4 p.m.
    Sunday: Closed

Don Ates (Director Residential Facilities)

• ates@austin.utexas.edu
• 512-475-8884

Erich Geiger (Executive Director Residential Dining and Longhorn Hospitality)

• Erich.Geiger@austin.utexas.edu
• 512-232-5818

Mynor Rivera: (Director Dining Operations)

• mynor.rivera@austin.utexas.edu
• 512-232-5619

Jeffrey Thomas (Director Dining Purchasing and Food Management Systems)

• jeffrey.thomas@austin.utexas.edu
• 512-232-5617

Dr. Mylon Kirksy (Senior Director Residence Life)

• m.kirksy@austin.utexas.edu
• 5120471-6177

Dr. Brandon Jones (Director Student Learning, Development and Engagement)

• bjones@austin.utexas.edu
• 512-232-5695

Email List:

Erich.Geiger@austin.utexas.edu, mtyus@austin.utexas.edu, dining@austin.utexas.edu, housing@austin.utexas.edu, m.kirksy@austin.utexas.edu, ates@austin.utexas.edu, mynor.rivera@austin.utexas.edu, m.kirksy@austin.utexas.edu, jeffrey.thomas@austin.utexas.edu, bjones@austin.utexas.edu
 

Have a great day.