Graphics by Megan Eloise
Behind The Budget Cuts
The email, sent by Peter Christensen, NYU Abu Dhabi's Associate Vice Chancellor for Finance and Planning, cites NYUAD's evolving campus, its growing ...
Sep 6, 2015
On Aug. 25, shortly before students departed to begin the Fall semester, an email was sent out notifying the student body of a significant change in the quantity and allocation of on-campus meals.
The email, sent by Peter Christensen, NYU Abu Dhabi's Associate Vice Chancellor for Finance and Planning, cites NYUAD's evolving campus, its growing student population and a changing economy as reasons for the meal plan adjustment.
The new plan allows each student 12 meal swipes per week, and provides a fortnightly deposit of 330 Campus Dirhams. The weekly value of the plan has decreased from 630 to 525 AED. On Sunday, August 30, there was an additional one-time 300 dirham upload, intended to supplement the fortnightly payment and allow for upfront purchases.
Meal Plan and Funding Cuts
This reduction in the food budget arrived alongside other funding cuts, including some to Student Interest Group funding for activities such as professional instruction in extracurriculars.Little is known about NYUAD’s general funding model; some students fear that the university experience is changing rapidly, with the cuts threatening things like SIGs and class trips abroad.
Senior Jad Mahmoud, who is currently having to borrow meal swipes from friends, spoke about the difficulties of making ends meet with the new plan. The new plan does not allow for three meals per day for a total of 21 per week; under the assumption that a meal is worth 30 AED, the total number of meals per week sums 17.5 Mahmoud calculated that, as is, he would need another 105 Dining Dirhams to be able to eat three regular meals a day, provided he didn’t ever shop at the Convenience Store or Marketplace.
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Donna Eddleman, Deputy Dean of Students, explained that this figure, as well as the larger changes in the meal plan, was based on aggregated data collected on students’ spending habits. The new plan was calculated based on those spending patterns, in order to reduce waste and excessive bulk-buying at the end of semesters.
“What I know is that that assumption [21 meals a week at 30 AED per meal] is not accurate in terms of what we know about student patterns of eating,” said Eddleman. “If that were the case, the data that shows that students spend a whole lot of money at the end of the semester... wouldn’t exist.”
The new dining plan is well-suited to the average student, who in previous years was allotted far more than they could actually eat. This is a functional arrangement for many, but leaves other students with very few options. Those who eat three 30-AED meals per day on a regular basis, for example, cannot sustain this practice. Many also pointed to the difficulty of finding additional meals off-campus, given Saadiyat’s relative isolation.
“[NYUAD is] obviously different than all other universities,” said sophomore Patrick Reid. “We’re on an island and the only place to eat at is St. Regis, and that’s pretty expensive.”
Dining Taskforce
Amid different concerns last year, the Dining Taskforce was created to address the inefficiencies in relaying student concerns to the administration.It includes representatives from ADNH Compass, NYUAD’s catering contractor, as well as administration, faculty and students, so that there is a direct conduit between involved parties. This semester, the student representatives are sophomores Yumi Gambrill and Melinda Szekeres.
Gambrill spoke about future plans for the Taskforce, suggesting that coordinating with Student Government will play an important role in allowing students to have their voices heard by the panel.
“Obviously administration is really aware of the discontent, so [a meeting] is something that we want to get done,” said Gambrill. “I think it’s going to be a time issue, just seeing if it’s really as bad as some people think or if we can make do.”
Gambrill reiterated that the cuts were based directly on data on students’ use of meal swipes and Campus Dirhams, and were intended to offset the extreme spending patterns that tended to crop up at the end of semester.
“Looking at it from the university standpoint, it’s a massive inefficiency to have people at the end of the semester just buying and buying and buying because they can,” she said.
Reallocation of Funding to Student Life
Many students also expressed discontent that the changes appeared to have been rushed, and that the administrative team who worked on them did not notify students until the last minute.Christensen, the Associate Vice Chancellor for Financing and Planning, explained that the budget planning had actually begun in early March but was not completed until the end of the summer.
In order to accommodate the needs of a much larger student body, the administration highlighted dining as a sector where cuts could be made in order to allocate food dollars more efficiently.
Christensen’s email also noted that some of the savings resulting from the change would be made available to SIGs to secure financial support for food costs at organizational events.
“One of the concerns we had heard from SIGs in the past was that they wanted to have events,” said Christensen. “Latino Night is a great example - it’s very expensive in terms of food but it’s a very popular event. And so the idea was, let’s have a funding source that can support those types of things.”
When asked about the potential increase in funds available to SIGs, Christensen did not specify where or when these funds would become accessible.
“We have the foundations of a process but we’re not going to roll it out until we know what the funding decisions are,” he said.
Christensen noted that there was some pressure on the budget from the large increase in student population, and that the dining plan cuts were intended as a way of alleviating some of that pressure and making sure that enough money was directed towards SIGs, which are also undergoing funding cuts.
“Sadly, I wish I could say, yes we're going to have more SIG funding, because that would be a great answer, but really this is about making sure we spread our precious resources as effectively as possible,” he said.
Government Partners and Funding Sustainability
Another big question for NYUAD’s budget is the extent of its dependence on the government and oil revenues. Given the recent drop in oil prices, many students expressed concerns about the sustainability of the funding model.In response, Christensen explained that there was nothing to worry about in terms of core features of the university, and reassured students that for the most part, the unique elements of an NYUAD education would remain untouched.
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“The government of Abu Dhabi has some constraints that they didn’t used to have to deal with as much when oil prices were sometimes triple what they are today, so as an entity that’s funded by the government we are sensitive to that,” he said.
“We have to make more choices than we used to, but we think that which is central to NYU Abu Dhabi and its success in its academic mission has been clearly protected: our excellence in teaching, our financial aid policy... the global component of our curriculum, all of which are very costly pieces of the education, but those are sacrosanct to us,” he continued.
Another crucial factor is that the impact of oil prices is incredibly time sensitive, and this makes it very difficult to plan ahead.
“Applying and getting accepted to college happens the year before, so we had made commitments to these students that we must honor,” he said.
A Growing Student Body
Christensen noted the delicate balance to be struck between a relatively constant budget and the rapidly increasing number of students.“Going into next year, we’ll have a chance to talk to our partners, to say how much more do we want to grow now versus in the next few years,” he added. “Eventually this campus will have about 2400 students, but we don’t have to do that [in the immediate future].”
“So we will have a better opportunity this fall to have that conversation, but that was part of what happened, we had commitments that we couldn’t renege on,” he concluded.
Christensen also pointed to the move to Saadiyat as a determinant of how certain parts of the budget are prioritized. Priorities have changed radically since the days when NYUAD’s entire student body fit into less than half an apartment building.
“In the first couple of years, when we didn’t have a campus, we were doing a lot of things to make sure students had a rich experience outside of the classroom… some of that probably has to be looked at, but that’s a lot different than saying what’s central to us is at risk,” he said.
Looking Ahead
Along similar lines, Eddleman explained that an important consideration in the changes was that students’ eating habits were evolving constantly, and continue to do so. This is especially salient given the high volume of returning seniors who have not yet lived on Saadiyat.“As students’ sense of place on campus evolves, their patterns of eating change dramatically; and so while the dining hall might be really crowded right now, two weeks from now we might see very different things. So I think we’ll make adjustments,” she said.
According to Eddleman, this is also an issue for ADNH, which does not yet have a complete understanding of students’ eating patterns.
“ADNH has to come to understand demand on the space and how much food we consume, and so if during the first week they run out of food once or twice, I would suggest that it’s because they have to come to understand student patterns,” said Eddleman. “If that continues, obviously we have a much larger concern.”
As of Sept. 3, two meal options were made available Sunday through Thursday in the West Dining Hall, which was previously unopened.
Concerns were raised over the changed meal plan allocation at the Sept. 6 Student Government General Assembly. Students asked for increased transparency and a timeline on any changes that are being planned as a result of student feedback. Student Government responded that they were scheduling meetings with administration.
Mario Zapata, copy chief, and Hannah Taylor, opinion editor, contributed to the reporting of this article. Tessa Ayson is features editor. Email her at tessa@thegazelle.org.
Melinda Szekeres is news editor as well as a representative of the Dining Taskforce. She was not involved in the writing or editing of this article.
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