As of Tuesday, Cornerstone added another meal option for next year’s seniors only: five meals per week and $250 in flex spending.

According to Micah Shepard, housing coordinator and administrative assistant, current choices for seniors living on campus are the 18-, 15- and 10-meal plans, with an optional plan of 45 meals per semester for commuters, which breaks down to about five meals a week.

The change will not affect seniors who plan to live off campus next year, but it may be a reason for them to re-think their fall housing plans, said Patrick Miller, dean of students.

“Our goal would be to encourage some seniors to reconsider living on campus and being a part of the campus community,” he said.

Miller said the idea for a new plan was part of an initial conversation back in February with Scott Stewart, controller in accounts payable, Marc Fowler, senior vice president for operations and chief financial officer, and Cindy Wiltheiss, director of Food Services.

The problem was that a few seniors living on campus couldn’t fit cafeteria meal times in with their student teaching or internships, and therefore were wasting their 10 meals per week.

The four agreed on a temporary solution for this semester, which included occasionally working the “Grab & Go” hours around those seniors’ schedules, and then later giving out a few Meijer gift cards as a reimbursement, since they had so many unused meals on their plans.

However, Miller said that they wanted to take this “one-time fix” to a new level.

“We were thinking, ‘What can we do to fix this long-term?’” he said.

Stewart, who ran the cost analysis for the new plan, said that his main goal was to find out what would be the best fit for the university and the students.

 “Having been a former student myself, I know how tempting it can be to want to move off campus and cook on your own,” he said. “Hopefully it will give [seniors] an opportunity to feel better about staying on campus.”

“I would hope that the students would appreciate us trying to do something within the limitations that we have, trying to meet a need,” Stewart said.

Nate Aubin, a commuter student who will be returning as a senior next year, said that he wouldn’t reconsider his decision to live off campus because of a change in meal plan options.

“The reason I moved off campus in the first place is because I lived here, but then I realized I was paying $800 a month to live on campus,” he said. “I can live on my own for less off campus.”

From a Food Services perspective, however, Wiltheiss said the new five-meal plan will suffice for now.

“At this point I think this is the best we can do,” she said. “We have to slowly make changes … to see how it all comes together. If you make too many changes too quickly, then you don’t really get to see the effect that has. When I make a change, it’s there to stay, or be improved on. I never want to take a step backward.”