On a day when junior Andrea Inman wanted to buy for her dinner at The Reef, much like she does nearly every day, she got an email saying her card would be deactivated if she did not pay her bill. That was on Friday at 4:30 p.m., a half hour before dining services closed for the weekend.
A month ago Inman’s card stopped working for a similar reason — she hadn’t paid, it read. She thought her meal plan was paid for the whole year, but it turned out she had only paid for the fall semester. She took care of the balance on her account through OASIS and her card started working again.
So Inman was puzzled when the card stopped working on Friday. She thought the problem with her meal plan had been dealt with. Another student saw Inman’s problem on Facebook and decided to take action.
Freshman Jozef Gherman, a Student Government senator, decided that he had had enough. Ghreman drafted a resolution for Student Government to officially “condemn and denounce” Sodexo, the food services company that runs The Reef.
“I’m going to with the students,” Gherman said. “I hope this resolution puts pressure on them… Hopefully they shape up.”
Gherman said he has heard too many complaints about the quality of the food in The Reef. He also said Sodexo’s decision to raise the price of meal plans by 3.3 percent is selfish.
“They came to us [at the SG General Assembly] out of good faith I suppose,” Gherman said. “Basically all they said was, ‘We’re doing this.’ It was just an announcement.”
Sodexo’s contract with USF St. Petersburg allows the company to raise the rate of meal plans by 1 percent to adjust for inflation. Their contract with the school is for five years and began with the opening of the USC.
In the infancy of his resolution, Gherman only heard a smattering of feedback, but he cites SG’s recent recommendation to increase the health fee by $1 beginning next year as a sign of how he thinks the senate will vote on the resolution.
“If this is the same student body that cares about health of the students they will be in favor of this,” he said.
He doesn’t see the resolution as the end of the discussion with Sodexo. Gherman would like to see them take his criticisms and improve. If the resolution passes and Sodexo improves, Gherman said he would put forth another resolution to denounce his previous one.
Resolutions passed by Student Government are not binding. They serve to document the legislative body’s position on a topic.
Gherman has had his own struggles with school’s meal plan options. As a resident of Residence Hall One, he is required to purchase a meal plan but has been trying to get out of that commitment.
He hasn’t eaten at The Reef “in a long time” and cooks his meals in the kitchen of his RHO suite.
“Everything I’ve had there, I’ve had better,” he said.
Note: This article was amended from a previous version that incorrectly listed Inman as sophomore. She is a junior. The original article also stated Inman had tried to use her card in the dining hall and it was rejected. This was not the case — she merely got an email saying it would not work.
