Students seek flex points

 Dawson said there are three main factors to the success of such an initiative: whether students want it, whether it makes financial sense and whether “we can get it off the ground.” Much of this is dependent on student participation. “The bottom line is that it would take some money to get a program going,” Dawson said. “LMU is a good example. In order to get a program like that going, the restaurants would have to have a card reader, there has to be someone on the Pepperdine side who can manage all the sales and collect all the money back and forth — there is some overhead cost to it.”Sometimes the primary reason these initiatives fail is a simple lack of student activism.“I don’t think there is enough student activism on this campus,” said Karl Kalinkewicz, resident director and communication professor. “Students complain a lot amongst themselves, but then they just accept that whatever they are complaining about won’t change and then move on. One of the students in my class actually asked if it was ‘legal’ to protest on this campus. I think it is extremely important for the students to express their concerns and desires for this campus.”SGA plays an enormous role in the development of student initiatives such as the off-campus meal plan. Dawson said that if the issue gains enough of a following in the greater student body, administration would “absolutely respond.”According to Dawson, however, the issue is not that there are too few students who want the benefits of such a program, but that few are willing to put in the research and labor to see it to fruition.Kalinkewicz said one of his students presented a project to the class recently suggesting the notion that meal points could be used off-campus.

“Students in my class and my area asked about using points at Chipotle, knowing that some colleges have dining options at various popular food chains,” Kalinkewicz said. “They were aware that LMU, who use Sodexo just like Pepperdine, allows for some of their meal points, not all of them, to be used at off-campus food vendors, including the Chipotle in Marina Del Rey.”

According to Kalinkewicz, the suggestion to provide such a program is not new.

“I know that SGA was working on something at the end of last year or over the summer and that there have   been various initiatives since I was a student to try to create off-campus options,” Kalinkewicz said. “What I know in terms of making this a reality is that everything needs to be student-driven to achieve being able to use points off-campus. If there is enough student response (petitions, comment cards, etc.), that would indicate to the university that this is important to students and it would improve their college experience.”