The start of the new academic year brought a number of changes to the way students on the meal plan can eat at Tulane. Dining Services expanded its menu of options and Tulane students can now eat at all Loyola University food service locations.
"We are trying to give all of our students more options. That is what students want," said Lisa Norris, Associate Director of Dining Services said.
More options were sought partly because Dining Services has many more customers to cater to this year than in previous years. The Tulane Renewal Plan, which dictated that all second-year students reside on campus beginning this fall, also mandated that those students purchase a meal plan.
To satisfy the returning students, "there are now five different Wavebucks options, and we have expanded Wavebucks plans and Pelican Plan dollars to the Loyola campus," Norris said.
But Loyola's cafeteria is not the only neighboring dining establishment for which Tulane has developed a taste. The University is currently working through its food service provider, Sodexho, to add South Claiborne Avenue's World's Healthiest Pizza to the dining hall roster.
The contractual relationship will exist between Sodexho and World's Healthiest Pizza, as Sodexho fully operates the meal plan system regulating Wavebucks.
"If we established a direct relationship, it would have to be a debit card relationship," Norris said. "Students would rather use their meal plan dollars because it's mom and dad's money as opposed to spending their own."
Though local restaurants like WOW! Café and Wingery and Byblos Mediterranean are contracted through Sodexho in the Lavin-Bernick Center, World's Healthiest Pizza will be the first third-party establishment to have access to information on Tulane student identification cards.
"We have the liability of a student's social security number embedded on that card," Norris said. "We might have to put a reader that reads only our cards in their establishment. If we can get the issues resolved, it might be available this fall or next spring."
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