During first-year orientation, mother Amy Cannon said she was told her daughter, a freshman who lives on campus, would be able to use her Tiger Card meal swipes as she saw fit once she purchased her meal plan.
But a recent and unannounced change to the University’s long-standing policy regarding meal plans for on-campus students now limits students to one swipe per meal period. The change no longer allows students to use their meal swipes for friends or siblings.
On the Sunday before school started, Cannon said she visited the LSU Dining Meal Plan FAQs where she read that students could use multiple swipes for their guests.
But Cannon said her daughter called her on the first day of school after eating at The 5 and said that when she tried to swipe someone in for a meal, she was charged 11 Paw Points instead of an extra swipe.
After checking LSU Dining’s FAQs page again Monday morning, Cannon noticed the policy had changed.
Cannon reached out to Margot Carroll, the assistant vice president of Auxiliary Services, and other LSU Dining Services employees last week to find out why no one had been notified of this change.
“It just reeks of dishonesty,” Cannon said. “We committed based on the information that was given to us.”
Carroll responded to Cannon via email and said the policy had been in place since 2012 as a way to conserve food and keep University costs as low as possible.
In her email exchange with Cannon, Carroll said that because parents brought up a good point about access to food for flood victims, LSU Dining would allow students with meal plans to use two swipes per meal period during the fall semester.
Chemical engineering freshman Emmanuel Adenanjo lives on campus and has 12 meal swipes a week in addition to 600 Paw Points. He said he only uses about nine swipes each week and was unaware that students had ever been able to share swipes with guests.
Chemical engineering freshman Joshua Davis also lives on campus and has the same meal plan. He said he uses about 10 swipes each week. He was also unaware that students could share swipes before an employee who swiped him into The 459 told him it was no longer allowed.
Cannon posted about the change on the LSU Parents’ Facebook page. Many unhappy parents commented on the post because they had purchased a meal plan for one student and expected the swipes to be shared with siblings who were also University students.
Cannon said her biggest concern is for students who are not aware of the new policy and are being charged Paw Points for additional swipes.
She said she is displeased with how the University has handled the situation, describing it as a “cloak of secrecy and complete inconsistency with everything we were told after we locked in our meal plan.”
Ben Dugas is the father of two University students. One is a freshman living on-campus who is required to have a meal plan, and the other is a senior who previously had a meal plan. Dugas said he found out about the policy change through Cannon’s Facebook post.
Dugas said he was told at everypast orientation that students could use their swipes how they wanted and that he was never notified of a change in policy.
“Frankly, it doesn’t surprise me that things like this happen, especially in the current economic environment with the state,” Dugas said.
He has not reached out to any University officials, but has kept up with the issue through the Facebook post. He said he wants to know why no one was notified of the change, when the change was made and why.
Dugas said that it would have been better for the University to notify students and parents of the change first and then phase it in, rather than implementing it all at once.
Cannon has reached out to employees in LSU President F. King Alexander’s office.
“I want someone to give me a legitimate answer,” Cannon said. “We lost enough by having our TOPS shaved off last year, and having to come up with that extra money is hard enough, but at least they told us beforehand.”
Margot Carroll did not respond to The Daily Reveille’s requests for comment.