Out to Lunch

Lunch has never been the most popular of meals in the Radcliffe dormitories, for reasons fairly obvious to those who eat there. No matter how attractively yesterday's leftovers are prepared, it takes the average 'Cliffie 15 minutes or longer to walk from the Square area back to her hall for lunch--and an equal length of time to return to the Yard or the library afterwards. Because many girls find it inconvenient and sometimes virtually impossible to return to the dorm daily at noon, the Radcliffe Administration should revise the present method of providing lunches.

Under the current system, students living in the dormitories pay a set term rate for room and full board. Box lunches or exchange slips allowing girls to eat in the Graduate Refectory are available only to those with an hour or less between mid-day classes. However, there are many students whose academic schedules make them ineligible for these alternatives, but who spend their afternoons studying in libraries or working in the laboratories. These girls are forced either to waste the time it takes them to go back and forth between the Yard and the hall dining rooms or to eat in the Square with the pleasant knowledge that they are paying for the lunch they don't eat as well as for the one they do.

The most obvious solution to the problem is for Radcliffe to allow students to pay for lunches individually, using meal tickets and indicating in advance which days they intend to eat lunch in the dormitory. The dining halls could plan meals accordingly, thus wasting considerably less food than they do at present, when nobody can predict how many will eat there. In addition, when the number of students eating lunch in the dorms fluctuates greatly, the college could provide box lunches or Refectory slips at the standard price under a less stringent set of restrictions, thereby encouraging students to continue paying Radcliffe rather than a commercial establishment for their mid-day meals. Under such a revised system, Administration and students alike would gain from increased efficiency and convenience.