Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 7, 1992                   TAG: 9203070061
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: M.J. DOUGHERTY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

ON-CAMPUS EATERIES HAVE LED TO HIGHER USE OF MEAL TICKETS

One recent day they served 6,000 meals, almost all paid for with student meal tickets - 199, less than 3 percent, were cash sales.

Ed Spencer, director of residence and dining services, had estimated that 90 percent of the meals were bought with meal tickets. Then on a random day - Feb. 26 - a survey showed meal-ticket use was even higher.

All but a handful of the meals served on campus appear to be what local merchants admit is an accepted role of the school - feeding students.

The restaurateurs are not asking that Blacksburg's meals tax be applied to these student meals, only to meals bought with cash by other customers.

Virginia Tech has made it easier for students to eat at its remodeled Owens Hall instead of going to a restaurant.

Students on the university's meal plan can use their cards to pay for at least part of their meal at Owens. This has lead to an increase in both the use of the meal cards and the number of students buying the plan.

About 70 percent of the value of the meal tickets is being used, up 5 percentage points from a year ago. And the number of students living off-campus who buy the meal plan jumped 120 percent this year to 3,100.

Faculty and staff can be seen eating at the new dining spots, leading to informal contacts with students. "That seems like what a university community should be all about," said Spencer.

Still, the dining halls are not private businesses, and that confuses some people.

"As a retail business, we have insurance, rents and all sorts of things like that to take care of," said Chris Kappas, owner of Souvlaki in downtown Blacksburg.

But so does Virginia Tech's food services. It is what the state calls an "auxiliary enterprise." It pays its own employee costs, utilities, maintenance, insurance and debt service as well as being assessed a university administration fee.