Barnard's new meal plan is making some students feel sick. Dean Spar hosted a town-hall meeting in The Diana to discuss the plan, which will require all students to purchase meal points. Students have petitioned the administration and formed groups to oppose the policy. 644 students have joined the Facebook group “Protect Your Right to Be Off the Meal Plan”.

"We decided to get together and start a Facebook group, the title which is 'Protect Your Right to Be Off the Meal Plan' and we have about 650 members at this point, which is about 1/3 of the Barnard classes will be affected by it next year. Because there are a lot of, believe or not, seniors in the group as well. I’m a senior, so this doesn’t even affect me but there are a lot of seniors in the group, and I feel so passionately about it because we feel that the way the administration has treated the students has been very negative and we feel that they have reached out for student input."

Ironically, the debate has created community at Barnard as students have gathered together to oppose the new policy.

"I was actually telling a friend the story of how Ashley and I met. It was last year when be both lived in the Quad at Barnard and we were both forced to be on the unlimited meal plan but unfortunately because of our severe food restrictions, there was nothing we could eat in the dining hall. So we were forced to pay thousands of dollars in order to eat food that we couldn’t eat or make us sick. So, Ashley and I met in the Quad kitchen one day when we were trying to make lunch for ourselves because we couldn’t eat anything in the dining hall."

Commuting students will also be forced to pay for a meal plan they may not use.

"Other students have raised a very legitimate concern that they live in Cathedral Gardens, very far away; they live on 110th, very far away and they are going to have to walk to campus, all the time to get food. You know it’s not, again it’s not conducive to their lifestyle. And the administration, throughout the forum, President Spar speaking quite vocally about her worries that students wouldn’t use the Diana, the new student center. And that was one of the reasons why she wanted to institute this new meal plan so that students would be kind of forced to come into the Diana to eat. But that was very off putting, I think, for most people in the crowd because to us, it’s like, this is a fantastic new building on our campus. Why would we not use it? I haven’t had a student center since freshman year, so I mean, I am thrilled and of course there is going to be flow traffic in the Diana. It didn’t make sense to us. It seems to me that there; I don’t feel like they really understand students on this issue."

While administrators promote the meal plan as a community building initiative, the lack of options and resources has students feeling isolated from the rest of the Barnard community.

"If I could just make it so that no other Barnard girl has to go through what I went through; I will be so happy. Because again, this doesn’t affect me, I just can’t stand the thought of another girl with my food allergy being forced to eat the food that I had to eat. So, and I’m hoping that, you know, as our society’s ideas about food evolve; we can have just more awareness."

Some students worry about the impact the meal plan will have on their financial aid packages.

CTV was not permitted to film the town hall meeting and our request for comment from the administration went unanswered.