All residential students at Brandeis University will be required to purchase a meal plan starting in fall 2016, according to an unsigned campus-wide email from "Campus Operations." Currently, students living in apartment-style residences equipped with kitchens, such as the Foster Mods and Ridgewood Quad, are not required to be on a meal plan.

Sodexo will also begin to implement other changes such as a renovation of Usdan Cafe and the elimination of meal equivalencies next year. Lower Usdan will become a second unlimited-dining location in the 2014 to 2015 academic year. Also in 2014-15, unlimited and flexible meal plan programs will be implemented and point-equivalency programs will be eliminated. Einstein Bros. Bagels will also expand that year.

Survey results collected by the Student Union suggest that the residential meal plan requirement could prove to be an unpopular change among students. However, of the students currently on campus, the new policy will only affect those in the Class of 2017. In interviews with the Justice, Student Union leaders said they were concerned about the meal plan requirement, particularly because it may force cash-strapped students to move off campus and they felt the process lacked sufficient student input.

Student Union President Ricky Rosen '14 said he worried the University prioritized administrative concerns over student well-being. "The decisions we make have to have students' interests in mind, and with this decision in particular, I'm not entirely sure that the best interests of students were the driving force behind the changes," he said.

Student Union Vice President Charlotte Franco '15 said she is "disappointed" with the way the decision to implement mandatory meal plans was made and the way it was communicated to the student body. Franco said that the new structure of meal plans, such as the elimination of meal equivalencies and the renovation of Lower Usdan, is a significant improvement.

Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel wrote in an email to the Justice that "all of the plan models include much larger portions of flexible funds that can be used at any retail (non dining hall) location, or to purchase additional 'meals' for those who do not opt for the unlimited plan."

In 2015 to 2016, residential students who enrolled in fall 2013 or later will be required to purchase a meal plan. By the following year, the requirement will apply to all residential students. The apartment plan option, according to the email, will be priced similarly to the current Village plan, which currently costs about $2,000 per semester. Regarding exact pricing of the plans, Flagel wrote the Board of Trustees will set tuition, fees and housing costs at its March board meeting.

Franco said the Student Union is advocating for less expensive meal plans so as not to add a prohibitive cost to students' bills.

According to the email from Campus Operations, "both dining-services vendor finalists" in the bidding process that Brandeis undertook last year before hiring Sodexo "agreed that a residential requirement was essential if the university wanted to expand its offerings and bring in new franchises such as Dunkin' Donuts."

Students responding to a December 2013 Student Union survey were largely critical of mandatory meal plans. In all, the survey garnered 877 responses.

Franco said the survey results have not yet been shared with either University administrators or Sodexo staff.

The majority of students surveyed responded that mandatory meal plans would affect their decision to live on campus. In response to the question, "If meal plans were required for all on campus living (with or without a kitchen), how would that affect your decision to live on campus?" 28 percent of respondents said, "I would choose to live off campus and not be on a meal plan," while 36 percent said, "I would choose to live where it was most affordable to me." Forty-three percent of students said mandatory meal plans would not affect their housing decision.

Rosen said affordability should be a top concern for the administration: "If we have mandatory, required meal plans for all on-campus housing ... we want to make sure that all of these options are affordable for students. I think that that needs to be the number one concern going forward."

According to the survey, 47 percent of respondents were satisfied with their meal plan, while 53 percent were not.

In a space reserved for additional anonymous comments, students overwhelmingly criticized the notion of mandatory meal plans.

"I think it would be an absolute disgrace if the university decided to coerce all students living on campus to get meal plans," wrote one student. "Right now people choose to live in certain places because they literally cannot afford to purchase a meal plan or do not wish to take on additional debt for one. Going to this system would exacerbate class issues already at play at Brandeis."

"I am extremely unhappy that the university is considering making everyone living in on campus housing get a meal plan," wrote another student. "I don't need one and I don't want to pay for one."

The Campus Operations email indicated that administrators were aware of concerns having been raised, and pointed to the fact that "the new requirement would phase in over four years."

Rosen said Sodexo and University administrators presented some elements of their proposal to alter the meal plan structure to student representatives in a November meeting. However, Rosen said, by the time the administration sought student input, decisions had already been made.

"I have gotten the sense that this has been the trajectory for the last few years. ... When we reached the point when we were in the room with them, to discuss the changes, a lot of the changes had been made already, which was a little worrisome."

Franco said she, Rosen, Class of 2017 Senator David Heaton and Danny Novak '15, met with Sodexo representatives, Flagel and Director of Strategic Procurement John Storti in the middle of last semester. That meeting consisted of discussions about the structure of meal plans, but the administrators did not provide a definite answer about mandatory meal plans.

The meeting "danced around" the topic of a meal plan mandate, said Franco. While Rosen regularly met with Flagel, that group never met again.

Regarding the email from Campus Operations announcing the meal plan changes, "When they're referring to students I find it very ambiguous," said Franco. "If they're talking about students in the context of Ricky, or myself, or the four people, we were in that one meeting and then never again."

"Our conversations, I would label as limited," said Franco. "Not that we weren't willing to have them, but it's just that were weren't involved."

In an email to the Justice, Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Andrew Flagel wrote, "Discussions about these models began with the Student Union and Senate Dining Board when I arrived, and continued through the past 2 1/2 years, including the subject coming up at nearly every strategic planning town hall meeting."

Storti wrote in an email to the Justice: "An effect of planning for construction, implementing dining venues and programming meal plan structures is that many decisions are made in consultation with students a year or more in advance of implementation of many efforts, which can often give students the false impression that this is a top down process."

Flagel declined to provide the Justice with specifics on how much revenue would be raised by the new requirement. "The contract with Sodexo has confidentiality components, but I can share that the expanded participation that will be phased in over the next three years was included in the model for investment in dining facilities and expanded dining venues," he wrote.

-Phil Gallagher contributed reporting.