Dinner departure reveals miscommunication

Without an audible or visible herald, the Saturday experiment has ended. The world has become more uncertain to me. Life seems harsh and cruel. My stomach’s secret weekend bastion, open from four to six o’clock on Saturdays, exists no longer — my discovery came at the hands of a desolate commons and an empty stomach.

Where in years prior there had been naught to consume after 1:30 p.m. in the afternoon, last year the university’s Saturday experiment began — early on-campus dinner from four to six. A modest yet hearty delight offering hamburgers, sandwiches and assorted chotchkes, the Saturday experiment was a meeting point for those on-campus who were not venturing outside just yet that evening. It was new, it was reliable, it was safe. Now, it is gone. Alas. Those who felt similarly were not in the majority, for the university chose to use its money and the time of their employees in efforts elsewhere.

Surely, others posit, this is a grand opportunity to venture beyond the hedges with friends. Why not simply take an extra morsel at lunch on Saturday, if not Friday’s dinner? Reasonable, logical propositions, perhaps. How it sounds to my gut, not so. Venturing beyond the hedges with friends is a fun way to spend a Saturday evening as well, but it is not consistent, time-efficient or cheap. This is Rice University. Many of us are studious enough to spend our Saturday evening at home doing organic chemistry. Many of us are too socially awkward to find a consistent movie date each Saturday. Many of us lack cars. For us, a three-hour endeavor beyond the hedges is impractical, as is a seven-dollar turkey sandwich at 13th Street.

Pilfering extra sandwiches and hamburgers to compensate are another contested point, though. The fundamental problem when people take extra food from the servery is the destruction of trust. One might be an off-campus student making the absolute most of their five meals a week or one may merely wish for a midnight snack. It matters not. Although convenient, when we take more than is allotted to us this destroys the validity of the only way the serveries know how much to cook. They make enough food for the number of card swipes, not the number of servings people deem fit for themselves.

It is a guessing game enough for both the chefs and the students as to what will be on the menu and whether there is enough for the evening alone — forcing students to stock up servery goodies muddles the process even further. I find it difficult to show up in time for popcorn shrimp on Fridays especially if others take second servings. Our loss of Saturday dinners simply confounds the situation further.

I still possess a pestering concern: I certainly do not recall telling the university to not feed me on Saturdays. What avenue of communication does the university have to reach us students regarding the success of the Saturday experiment, or any other policy? I do not recall polls or surveys, nor a picket campaign from servery workers.

This problem comes from the fact that there is currently no easy way to notify the students of such subtle changes to social aspects of Rice University. The Rice News e-mails are more press release than undergraduate communication. The Rice Thresher, though available campus-wide, still requires the reader to first obtain the publication then actually search within its enthusiastic journalism. And there are the expected grumblings regarding the confusingly laid out and outdated Web pages of each department.

Indeed, I bump into many off-campus students who were completely unaware that Saturday dinner existed in the first place. A listserv directed solely to the undergraduates already exists and should be used to coordinate campus happenings and developments such as this. A listserv brings news to students both on-campus and off, allowing greater communication and unity.

My stomach’s secret Saturday bastion will be sorely missed, but I ache for a better method for the university to inform students of its bureaucratic changes.

Nicolas Morrison is Hanszen College junior.

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