Mornings in the Baugher Student Center begin with the opening of the Marketplace and Jay’s Nest at 7 a.m. Meanwhile, Dining Services employees have already begun their day. Student assistants report to the Blue Bean, the Jay’s Nest register, and upstairs to the Marketplace. The preparations for the day must begin immediately, because hungry students, faculty and staff members also get on with their routines.

Most students at Elizabethtown College don’t need to think too much about how they are going to get their most important meal of the day. A quick and easy run into the Jay’s Nest before class or a more relaxed stop upstairs in the Marketplace allows students to focus more on getting to class instead of how to pay for breakfast. Faculty, however, do not have the same privilege.

Current meal plan options for faculty are fairly limited. Faculty have the option to purchase Jay Bucks, but that does not include any number of meals in the Marketplace allotted for each semester. Faculty breakfasts and lunches are offered at a discount price, but a meal plan that they may purchase every semester would allow faculty to focus more on work instead of on budgeting their meals.

While incredibly convenient, on-campus dining is not the only option for faculty. There are a few choices located outside campus, the most popular being Folklore, Pita Pit, TJ Rockwell’s and E-Yuan. Most of these options provide some variety in the diets of everyone at the College. Unfortunately, some of these options also lack the healthy balanced component seen in the meals offered in the Marketplace and Jay’s Nest.

Professors like Associate Professor of Chemistry Dr. Thomas Hagan advocate the idea of creating a faculty meal plan. “I find that when I compare the food at other colleges I go to for conferences to Elizabethtown’s I always find Elizabethtown’s is consistently better,” Hagan said.

He frequents the Marketplace each semester and genuinely enjoys the food that Dining Services offers. Hagan said that he tries his best to get to the Marketplace during the hours where he can get in and eat for less than 14 dollars. Since Hagan pays for meals out of pocket, this discount meal makes a huge difference in his budget. If there were a faculty meal plan it would certainly ease the day-to-day budget concerns of the faculty.

The faculty Jay Bucks policy is similar to the student one where a minimum purchase of 20 Jay Bucks may be made at any time. This is the only option for faculty to trade in cash or real dollars for school currency. While this method has worked out well thus far, the institution of a faculty meal plan could make the everyday lives of faculty easier and bring more of a tight-knit identity to Elizabethtown.

The Office of Admissions often advertises the idea that every student eats under the same roof when on campus, but if faculty were included in that statistic, it would enhance the idea of a small close community at the College.

An Etown where professors and students can establish a routine that includes grabbing breakfast together, walking to class, and then maybe even getting lunch after class would be closer to the ideal of a close and relationship-centered education. Students are often encouraged to interact with faculty outside of the classroom. The addition of a meal plan could aid in this expectation. The simple act of sharing meals paves a road to new conversations to have and new ideas to share.

Eating together typically brings people closer. It creates opportunities to talk about recent events, contemporary issues, and ideas relevant to both students and professors. It would allow the conversation to continue from the busy morning of preparation to the quiet end of the day.