After technical difficulties downed the dining halls’ meal swipe system two weeks ago, dining employees were forced to record with pen and paper the student ID numbers of those trying to get their meals so as to charge them at a later date. That later date came in the middle of last week, without notification from dining administrators, leaving students without the number of meal swipes they paid for in their accounts.
“On Wednesday night, I was like ‘Oh, I still have nine meal swipes left this week,’” said Nina Matus ’25, who has a 14-meals-per-week plan. “When I checked Thursday, in the morning, it was down to three meals that were left.”
Naomi Shertzer ‘25, who has the same meal plan, similarly noticed that meal swipes vanished from her account despite not having actually used them during the week.
“I remember my friend had said on Wednesday that they had not taken out the meal swipes from last week and she was just confused by that,” Shertzer said. She checked her account the next day to see if the same had happened to her.
“I only had one meal swipe left and I had three more meals in the week to eat,” Shertzer said.
Shertzer was able to eat because others spent their meal swipes for her. The 14-meal plan costs roughly $204 each week, assuming a 14-week-long semester.
At Lafayette, meal swipes are allocated on a weekly basis, resetting each Friday. They do not carry over to the next week if left unused.
Geoff Labe, a finance administrator, explained in an email that in the event of an outage, student ID numbers are written down so that meal swipes can be deducted “through a manual reconciliation process” once the system is online again.
The late charges occurred due to human error, according to Labe, who added that if students experience an issue with their meal swipes, they should inform Dining Services by emailing [email protected] or stopping by the Dining Services office in Marquis Hall.
William Gutiérrez ’27 contributed reporting.
Disclaimer: Design Director Naomi Shertzer ‘25 did not contribute writing or reporting.
