When observing the demographics of college campuses, few places come close to the diversity of their populations. Students from all over come together with the common goal of pursuing higher education.

A large portion of these students even opt to live in campus dormitories, creating a responsibility for the university to properly house and protect those living there. Fundamental to the comfort of this integrated community is, of course, food.

Regardless of where life takes these students, they must eat to survive. Beyond survival, food is an important part of every culture that a university comes in contact with. Yet, students who live a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle, have life-threatening allergies, or have religious dietary needs are not adequately accommodated by FGCU Dining Services.

I transferred to FGCU on a vegan diet and was made to believe that there would be bountiful food options. What I did not realize when I invested in a financially steep meal membership was that many of these “vegan options” were not available as meal swipes or plain unhealthy.

The vegan options at The Boardwalk in North Lake Village entail a “salad” which is just a box of plain romaine lettuce and croutons, as well as a tofu sandwich. Though some vegans may be excited by a tofu sandwich, as a vegan with a severe soy allergy, I certainly was not.

There is also an argument to be made about how healthy tofu actually is, but I am not only biased, I am not a dietitian. A black bean burger or quinoa option could be an incredibly smart play on The Boardwalk’s part if its goal is truly to offer students healthy and accommodating meal options. When making the switch to clean eating, burgers and fries, pizza and pasta are not exactly what you want the food groups of your campus dining to be.

I visited the SoVi Dining Hall with a friend who had a shellfish allergy on a day they were serving shrimp pasta. We asked one of the cooks how they prevent cross-contamination with the allergens and other food, and his response was, “We really don’t do much, honestly.”

This is the only campus dining option where students can use a meal swipe at all hours with no limit. No further comment.

So the options are leaning towards the… awful side but let’s say those of us with special dietary needs find a few core meals on the main campus. When might we be allowed to use our meal swipes? One would think during all hours that food is served, but that is much too accommodating.

As per the Meal Plan Purchase page from the FGCU Dining Services website: “NEW! Two (2) Membership Swipes available Monday through Friday on main campus (1) 7 a.m. – 11 a.m. and (1) 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.”

Before the 2024-2025 academic year, students were only permitted meal swipes on main campus until 2 p.m. Never mind students getting out of classes between 4:15 p.m. and 10:00 p.m., though. Forget it if you have a job and work late!

So while this year’s times were a much-needed improvement, one still would like to know why these times are so stringent.

Why are late schedules ignored? Why are students limited on when they can use credit off meal plans they paid for? Why do unused Flex Dollars disappear from a student’s account once the semester ends? Why can students only use one meal swipe at The Boardwalk per day? Why does it matter if all of the swipes are paid for and nonrefundable? Did FGCU not already make their money from these memberships?

These terms of the meal memberships are not difficult to notice and raise an oddly quiet concern about students’ right to their own money.

The expected rebuttal is that students are made aware of the restrictions on meal swipe time frames when they purchase their meal plan. It can also be reasonable that personally tending to tedious dietary restrictions is not FGCU’s responsibility. After all, the university cannot accommodate every person’s dietary comforts, but my question to Dining Services is: How detrimental would one accessible menu change be to your budget?