Hello Students!
Choice has long been a hallmark of GW’s dining program and we’ve heard from our community that it should remain so. As we begin a multi-year transformation of GW’s dining experience to focus more on a residential dining experience, flexibility and choice will continue to be at the heart of our program as food options are as varied as our identities, health and dietary needs, activities, and schedules.
Now, as the future of GW’s dining is nearing, the time has come for you to make a choice and select your meal plan if you will be living in one of GW’s residence halls next academic year.
But wait, what is all this talk about choice, affordability and flexibility? In case you have not heard, we announced last fall that we will be phasing out the grab-and-go style declining cash balance meal plans in favor of meal plans that offer an all-you-care to eat style of eating in dining spaces located within the residential halls to allow students to gather together as peers and classmates in an effort to build community under a shared passion - eating good food!
As some of you first-year students have experienced, this transformation started this year with a renovation of the dining space at Pelham Commons on the Mount Vernon Campus. In fall 2022, Thurston Hall will open and include a 225-seat dining hall and the current District House and Shenkman Hall eateries will be transformed into GW community only dining halls. Chick-fil-A will join Panera in the University Student Center in the fall.
As we implement GW’s re-imagined dining program, we will be introducing a meal swipe program for students, which is likely a new concept for many of our returning students. A meal swipe allows a student to enter a dining hall via a ‘swipe’ of their GWorld card and then once in the dining area eat as much as they want from a variety of offerings before departing. Under this all-you-care-to-eat meal plan students will experience a daily variety of healthy, convenient and most important affordable meal choices.