By Paige Quiggins

Megan Steinberg isn’t happy with having to pay the $250 next fall for the University of Louisville’s mandatory meal plan. But for Steinberg, a leukemia survivor, the problem has less to do with the wallet and more to do with the body.
Steinberg, a senior sociology major, said the disease changed her life and has affected the way that she takes care of her body. She feels it is important that students be allowed to choose what they want to eat, especially for students who want to avoid eating certain foods that may contain harmful ingredients.
“Are the university and Sodexo willing to be liable for any health problems the food may cause?” Steinberg said.
For students like Steinberg, the mandatory meal plan exists as a problem across the university, but for students like Erin Clark, the way the Student Government Association has handled the problem hasn’t helped matters much.
“Only recently has the SGA tried to reach out to students, to try and make amends because of the meal plan backlash,” said Erin Clark, a sophomore math major. “As the voice of the students, I feel as if they should be more available and approachable.”
Michael Anthony, director of the Cultural Center and a former SGA adviser, said a problem in SGA is often their inability to accumulate input from the student body.
Anthony acknowledged that SGA does plenty of positive things, citing voter registration and the Rally for Higher Education as examples, but that everyday conversation concerning the needs of students is not one of their strong suits.
“We have to figure out how to reach people and touch their passions,” Anthony said. “Sometimes people might not want to be involved, but you have to do the work anyway.”
In regards to the meal plan, SGA President Rudy Spencer said that SGA did a good job communicating to students and that student involvement since the meal plan’s announcement has been very disappointing.
Spencer said SGA has heard from about 1,200 students who are against the plan. However, only 23 students attended the meal plan waiver advisory meetings, held by SGA over the past month and 39 have sent e-mails with their opinions for change.
Spencer said he is still behind the plan, and feels the dissenting voice from some students does not represent the majority of the student body.
“I would say that the students who are upset are the students who historically have said that student government doesn’t represent them,” Spencer said. “I truly believe it is a small percentage of the student population.”
Spencer also said that there has been dissent within SGA that the Senate was upset about how information regarding the meal plan was communicated to them.
“I would respectfully disagree with the Senate, because we were consistently trying to get them to meet through this past summer about this,” said Spencer. “But they basically said ‘you guys just make the decision and tell us at the end.'”  
Steinberg was also disappointed and shocked with the lack of student representation at the meetings.
“You have to tell students what they don’t want to hear,” she said, “in order to get them to show up.”
On that front, Vice President for Student Affairs Tom Jackson is confident that SGA has done a good job.
“They knew they would take the brunt of some displeasure from students,” Jackson said. “But their position was fairly clear and they wanted to see improvements made to food service.”
When it comes to the effectiveness of SGA in handling big issues like the meal plan, Spencer pointed to things like the childcare center, the new health building that is currently being planned and sustainability as things that student government has spearheaded over the years.
“Student government has really led the charge when it comes to a lot of different issues on this campus,” Spencer said.
Senate speaker Anna Ramsay brought up the 24-hour library study to be held during finals as something the SGA had great influence on pushing through.
“SGA is kind of a lobbying firm for what students want,” Ramsey said. “With the library thing, the administration didn’t want to do it at first but then the Provost got involved and it happened. Some battles you aren’t going to win and others you are.”
With the meal plan though, Spencer said that student involvement is one of the only things that can affect its implementation.
“If it were 5,000 students, I think that would be enough to make me seriously reexamine the policy,” Spencer said. “With such a small population of resistance, I still want to move forward because I don’t think it is a convincing number of people.”