Dining Services announced yesterday that it will combine the university's often perplexing Points Plus and Dining Dollars systems into one multi-purpose account next semester, a move that Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senator C.J. Mourning said could pave the way for more restaurants to join the Merchants on Points (MOPS) system.
Dining Services also announced that meal plans will no longer include points, so students may choose the number of dining hall meals they purchase independently of the amount of cash they store on their identification cards.
With the newly introduced JumboCash system, students will be able to use their ID cards to buy meals at on-campus eateries and area restaurants and also to pay for such on-campus expenses as bookstore purchases and laundry cycles.
Students have consistently expressed confusion over what they can buy with Dining Dollars and what falls in the domain of Points Plus. Dining Dollars, which many students historically purchase at the beginning of each semester as part of their meal plans, can be used to buy food from selected on-campus eateries and from six sponsored restaurants near campus. Points Plus can be used at campus food vendors and to make other miscellaneous payments such as bookstore purchases and overdue-book fees at Tisch Library. Students can use their ID cards to access money from both accounts, which are often referred to collectively as "points."
Director of Dining Services Patti Klos said students' confusion about the two accounts motivated the merger. "In the students' minds it wasn't the most convenient way to make purchases," she said. "We call [JumboCash] 'points simplified' ... We hope that this [system] will be a no-brainer, easy to understand and just make life simpler for everyone."
Mourning, the TCU's outgoing Services Committee chair, spearheaded an effort this school year to streamline the points system. She said the initiative stemmed from a broader goal of expanding the MOPS program, which allows students to order food from local restaurants using their Dining Dollars.
Mourning said that since Dining Services counts on receiving most of the revenue from Dining Dollars, the department has not historically been able to afford to let students spend a great deal of the money in that account on off-campus restaurants.
"In terms of getting more restaurants on points, [creating JumboCash is] a step that has to be taken," Mourning said. "It's a matter of where the money goes in the university, because Dining Dollars are for Dining Services and Points [Plus] are separate."
Now that Dining Dollars will no longer be a part of the meal plans that Dining Services sells, the office will have to reconfigure how it relies on reaping money from students' purchases at non dining-hall eateries on campus, according to Mourning. This will help Dining Services adapt to incorporating more restaurants into the MOPS system, she said.
"Because the Dining Dollars ... money goes toward Dining Services ... and because it's attached to meal plans, it's money that they're counting on every year to receive," she said. With the new JumboCash system, this will change, Mourning said.
She said combining Dining Dollars with Points Plus and eliminating points from meal plans grew out of the Services Committee's original goal of adding more restaurants to the MOPS program. "Last year when I was first assigned the project of getting more restaurants on points we saw that in order to get more restaurants on points there are [two] preliminary steps that have to be taken," Mourning said, citing yesterday's innovations as these two initial measures.
But Klos said that Dining Services made these changes for independent reasons, and that the steps would not necessarily affect the MOPS system.
"I don't think it's directly related. I'm aware that students have expressed a desire to have more off-campus options and that's something that we'll continue to look at with student representatives' help in the new school year," she said.
Klos said that more complicated obstacles lie ahead before Tufts can incorporate additional off-campus restaurants into the MOPS program. "The more critical factor ... would be to be able to have electronic settlements [with restaurants], which is something I'm looking into as well," she said.
In the current payment system, restaurants must save loads of paper receipts and submit them to Dining Services twice a month. University employees then sift through the receipts individually and tally them up before settling with the eateries. Both Dining Services and affiliated restaurateurs find this method cumbersome.
Klos said that Dining Services aims to make students' JumboCash accounts available online by the end of the summer, which will be a step toward alleviating this problem.
The move to online will also give students more direct access to and oversight of their accounts. Dining Services hopes to make it possible for students to use credit cards to add to their JumboCash over the Internet, and to allow students to check their account balances online.
Adding JumboCash will carry new financial incentives for students, Mourning said. They will save 10 percent if they purchase JumboCash by a certain date in the summer. "If I want to buy 1,000 points next year I only have to pay $900," so long as the buyer makes the purchase by a certain date, she said.
TCU President Neil DiBiase said that the changes announced yesterday marked a major step for the Senate and Dining Services. Combining Dining Dollars with Points Plus is "something that the Senate has been working on since I was elected ... three years ago," he said. "This is something that is really going to impact the student experience at Tufts for the better."
DiBiase doled out credit to Mourning and Klos. "It's something that C.J.'s been working really hard on, [and] Dining [Services] has been more than receptive ... to this idea of looking for a new system of points. I think Patti Klos is dedicated to improving the student experience. She's been one of the most accessible administrators for the Senate," he said.
