RMC improvements require tinkering

By Staff Editorial     9/14/11 7:00pm

The RMC received quite the overhaul this past summer, resulting in a new convenience store and a new Mediterranean food outlet (see story pg. 7). However, these non-student businesses are out of sync with the needs of the student body.

Currently, ReChargeU is open until 7 p.m. on weekdays and closes even sooner on the weekends. Droubi's is also only open til 7 p.m. on Monday through Thursday and closes at 2 p.m. on Fridays. These hours of operation render these brand-new RMC offerings useless at peak-need times. Currently, there is nowhere on campus to grab a late dinner if one is too late to the serveries; the same lack of options exists on Saturday nights when serveries are closed. Many circumstances, including illness, may preclude students from leaving campus on Saturday nights. Not having a Saturday night on-campus dinner option is simply unacceptable; however, all RMC vendors are closed on Saturday nights, and students are literally forced off-campus to find food. There are plans to experiment with new hours next week, and the Thresher strongly encourages ReChargeU to permanently implement these extended hours. Ideally, ReChargeU would be able to fill the gap between the serveries' close and the Hoot's opening. Perhaps ReChargeU and Droubi's should consider hiring Rice students to fill the later shifts if finding employees on late weekday nights and Saturday evenings is difficult. The RMC changes have the potential to really improve student life; however, until a few changes are made to hours of operations, these improvements do very little for the student body.

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