Harvard University Dining Services will not extend its serving hours, which currently end at 7:30 pm, according to a decision by the university's Committee on House Life following a year-long investigation into the feasibility of the move.
Instead, the House Life Committee endorsed the recommendation of a subcommittee looking into the matter. This followed numerous complaints from students that serving hours in the dozen campus "house" dining halls was a practice that was "out of touch" with actual student habits.
The subcommittee report found that extending hours would either cause a rise in board costs, currently at $4,618, or compromise Harvard's longstanding tradition of house dining (e.g., by instituting a flexible points meal plan that would allow undergraduates to eat in campus retail outlets as well as in the dining halls). The Committee was unwilling to embrace either of these courses.
