Flex Cash
This is an absurd Idea, Students already have Axe Cash. Meal Plans were not hard to calculate, and everyone had it down to a system. This new Flex Cash just doesn’t fly.
This was taken from the Acadia Website regarding Flex Cash which can be found here
4. Do the new dining plans allow for meal exchanges?
The meal exchange component of the 2006-07 dining plans has been replaced with a Flex Cash amount of $100, which allows students to purchase food items at the campus retail outlets. Flex Cash provides students with greater flexibility than meal exchanges, as there are not any restrictions regarding the food items that may be purchased, meal periods or cash equivalencies. Students are encouraged to enjoy their meals and breaks at Wheelock Dining Hall where they have greater a variety of healthy choices. As well, Wheelock Dining hall will serve as a campus social hub, and the environment and excitement will be enhanced by Guest Chefs, cooking demonstrations, and nutrition forums.
5. What if a student has left over Flex Cash at the end of the year?
As Flex Cash is considered part of the dining plan package it does not have any cash value, and therefore will not be refunded.
6. What if students run out of Flex Cash?
While students may not purchase additional Flex Cash, they may purchase Axe Cash, which provides additional flexibility. Axe Cash may be purchased online using a credit card (click here) or by visiting the Residence Life Office in Bancroft House. Please note that Axe Cash purchases may not be applied to the Student Account. Axe Cash Balances over $5 at the end of the academic year are automatically refunded to students’ Student Account.
I’m incredibly depressed that meal exchanges are out, it was one of the best features of the meal plan. And I’m sorry, but $100 of “Flex Cash”? That’s like 10 exchanges.
This is literally the dumbest thing ever…so they’re saying it’s better for us to only have 100 dollars a year vs as many meal exchanges as we buy? I think it’s only fair that if we pay for say 14 meals a week, we should be able to get 14 meals a week. Sometimes I have classes or labs etc. and I can’t make it. Basically, they are just trying to be as cheap as they can, what complete assholes..as if they don’t already get a LOT of money from us for the services that they provide.
acadia advantage is suppose to give something to the students not take something away. what happened to the choices? sorry, but 2 options [so far- neither meet any form of standard] to basically pay $12 for a bowl of cereal is not the worth the amount of cash we are putting into this university. enrollment is going to be hit hard for current and future students coming back to residence. is one year in rez vs. 2 or 3 [provided a good meal plan!]— we are in the business to make profit not reduce it. sadly, it is utter disappointment…
I used at least one meal hall exchange a day during the year, so the prospect of them being removed completely is rather alarming.
And by alarming I mean: when is the protest and can I bring facepaint?Not cool Chartwells.
Perkins was great for a quick lunch between classes, begals and orange juice were the reason I stayed awake in stats class, and I can’t count the number of times I ran down for pizza at 10:55. To think that, after 100$, all of that would be ON TOP of a very pricy meal plan is absurd.
at the moment i am looking for a place to stay besides residence unless they come up with an alternative to the two new options at meal hall let alone am i aggravated by the fact that theres no meal exchanges but by the fact that i HAVE to choose unlimited and pay so much more then last year, im better off living off campus ordering in everynight then giving into this new meal hall “on pulse dining”. Not Impressed!
why are we paying so much money for the meal plan if we can’t even decide what we really want? Usually its the customer that is supposed to be king but I get the feeling they want to force us to be eating at meal hall. I smell dictatorship.
Give us more options including meal exchanges.
Do we have to start a petition to get meal exchanges?
lets go on a hunger strike.
I’m not going to be on campus next year and I am very happy after hearing this. I believe this is another reason to choose off campus living instead of living in Residence. This just adds to the pile of reasons why Acadia is loosing it’s residential students so quickly. I was also looking forward to being able to get a small meal plan, like 75 meals for the year so when I didn’t have time to run home to eat before my next class, I could do meal exchange or head up the hill to meal hall. However, this is looking like it isn’t an option anymore and to be quite frank… you are loosing. I’m not the only student doing this either.
I firmly believe in any situation that having a building look its best with fancy boothes and tvs DOES NOT make the food and the service taste better. Honestly, it makes it worse. It gives you this artifical feeling that you are getting more, but really you aren’t. Being a student who lived with cafeteria food for the past two years… it’s easy to tell the difference.
I was excited for the fact that Chartwells was changing things up in the building, however that does not compare to the frustration with the fact that the student’s options and lifestyles at school are being changed for the worse. After going through the pros and cons, I do not see this as beneficial to anyone on campus except Chartwell’s. And that is most unfortunate. Chartwells, you are a HUGE successful company, you are internationally huge, and you CAN offer better. Acadia’s students deserve better than what you are offering. Please try again for the sake of the students required to eat at Wheelock even though you have lost my business entirely.
Flex cash is redundant. Axe cash is already well established at Acadia as a way to use and purchase campus services. If Chartwells can charge in its “Flexcash” why not just charge and stock goods according to actual dollars and let students use Axe cash?
Two competing systems of payment will not benefit anyone, contrary to what Chartwells may think. The more established and familiar system (Axecash) will win out in terms of usage, yet if Chartwells whole gambit is to make more money by introducing a new, redundant, and confusing system then perhaps they are no better than Sodexho in terms of caring about the students.
It is unrealistic to expect any student to have only one hundred dollars of leeway in terms of meal exchanges; if anything eating at meal hall should be more expensive because it has no limit. Furthermore, any student who has a pressing schedule academically or extra-curricular (a sciences major with labs or a varsity athlete, for example) who cannot make the “regular” hours at meal hall when food is served must essentially survive off meal exchanges. Which brings up another point of contention: so called “regular” meal hours. Beleive us, everyone knows the logistical nightmare of serving hot food for the entire duration of the day, but leaving even one station open and serving hot food for those with irregular schedules would be appreciated.
Flat screen TV’s? Booths? Fireplaces? If anything, students will be spending more time at the meal hall, and as such will be loitering and eating more food at odd times of day.
Oh, and have fun with the corresponding rise in noise and rowdiness that comes with your entertaining installations.
Let’s make this clear: I, as me, don’t really go to meal hall. For me, this plan is actually beneficial, as I will be able to purchase milk and other groceries with the money as opposed to the limitations of meal exchanges. In fact, to be honest, this plan was pretty well tailor made for me.
Which makes it the dumbest idea EVER.
Honestly, Chartwells, who are you kidding here? I am NOT NORMAL. My eating habits could not be more bizarre, and people want more out of their meal plan than the meal hall experience. What you are currently doing is trying to force people to go into meal hall, giving them no other options.
Well, as Heather most correctly pointed out, there is another option: not living in residence at all. The fact that the University, with problems across the board dealing with keeping students in residence, didn’t step in and force Chartwells into doing something decent here BOGGLES MY MIND.
I just sent a rather long email to Chartwell’s spelling out how completely absurd I find the new meal plan “options”. Doesn’t anyone else find it ironic that they call it “Flex Cash” when all it’s doing is limiting our flexibility? All year long I seriously disliked how limited the service hours at meal hall were, especially as after my evening classes I needed to get something to eat. But I could leave with it because I understand it’s difficult to stay open a long time and I always had other options. May I ask, how is a student such as myself who next year has a block of four classes consecutively going through lunch time supposed to run up to meal hall, eat, and run down back to class in a matter of minutes? It’s completely ridiculous.
I feel very much as though I’m being patronized by Chartwell’s. If they think that I’m going to be impressed by a big screen TV and forget that the food is bad and I have pretty much no options, then they are sorely mistaken. Next year will be a complete nightmare if this plan goes through, but if ANY opportunity arrises for me to protest or to fight these changes, I am all in.
We decided to switch over to Chartwell’s because we wanted a change, meaning better healthier food and more flexibility. Yet it seems that the food is most definitely not any better, and we pretty much lost all the flexibility we had before…but fear not Acadia students! You can now watch TV while eating your $12 bowl of cereal! Hoorah!
Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation
Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Unheeded.