Collegiate Times

"In my eyes, what SGA is working to accomplish, is to more evenly distribute the flow of traffic through the dining halls by incentivizing the students and general public to come in during slow times, and to alleviate the pressure off of the noon to 2 p.m. rush that the dining halls typically get," Garnett said. "I hope that overall customer satisfaction is increased and that the flow of traffic is more evenly distributed."

McCarty said that the dining centers are losing money when students are not accessing the dining halls during the hours of 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

"From 3 to 5 p.m. it is nearly empty in the dining halls, so what we found is that there are all of these fixed costs that dining has to pay, which is the staff, who gets paid hourly wages whether people show up or not," McCarty said. "The lighting is a fixed cost, the grills, food, all of that stuff is all fixed costs, and the only thing that changes is the food for sale so what we want to do is to help lessen the stress for the dining staff."

Another big issue, McCarty added, is that a lot of the dining staff are students, and they have expressed concern about how bad traffic is during those peak hours.

 "We saw this as an opportunity to meet the students needs by hopefully reducing congestion and then reducing that feeling of stress during those two hours that are non-stop work for them," McCarty said. "We really see this as being a huge win-win opportunity and hopefully this is something that will continue based on the feedback that is provided during that week."

McCarty said that SGA is fortunate to work with Housing and Dining Services on the incentive.

"They realize that the student is who we are all serving, and if students want something open later, then that is what they are going to do," McCarty said. "They care so much."

Coupons are available in the SGA office in 321 Squires, and tickets are located in selected dining facilities around campus.

"Honestly, the goal with the program is to meet the concerns of the students, which have been that during peak dining hours students are not having the best dining experience that they can have," McCarty said. "Dining services has worked with us because they see that the student is who they are serving, that is their customer and that is who they care about so, I think we see great potential and hopefully this becoming something bigger than the pilot."

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