Late night study sessions over piles of snacks are an expected part of student life that Kennesaw State should support by allowing some on-campus eateries to stay open past 9 p.m.
By keeping some eateries open late, KSU would provide students on campus with more options for late night food. On-campus dining could rotate which restaurants stay open late, giving the students some variety.
According to KSU’s website, the majority of the restaurants on campus close by seven every night, except on the weekends. Stingers and the Commons, for example, have regular hours from Sunday through Thursday night, but on the weekends their hours are limited. Meal plans can be relatively expensive, and it does not seem worth the investment if you cannot get the food you want on the weekends or late at night.
Having to leave campus for a simple late-night meal is an inconvenience many students have to deal with. This is a problem that commuter students may not always have to deal with, and because of this, it may discourage students from living on campus.
“The food options on the Marietta Campus, even during the day, are limited, but after 9 p.m. there is nothing,” Nick Weaver, a sophomore mechanical engineering major, said. Weaver lives on the Marietta Campus and says there is a drastic difference between the food on the different campuses.
Many students combat the problem of no after-hours food with food delivery apps, but they are forced to pay out of pocket for these services on top of an already expensive meal plan. These students are paying to live on campus full-time, and as such, they should be able to have access to university-provided food full-time as well.
One university that has decided to switch to 24-hour food service is Lynn University. The university instituted this idea in 2014, and since then it has been a success.
“If that is what works best for our students, then that’s what we are going to do,” Gregg Cox, the vice president for Academic Affairs at Lynn University said. Since then, Cox has said that students have seemed more awake and engaged in their evening classes.
KSU should use Lynn University as an example and begin to implement more accommodating hours for dining services. All of the restaurants on campus do not need to be open late, but there needs to be something available for the students who pay money to live on campus full-time and for those on campus late at night.
