The Student Government Association has passed a resolution that, if the faculty senate decides to implement, will allow commuter students the option of purchasing residential meal plans.

The resolution stemmed from the results of a survey that SGA conducted earlier in the semester.

The team that worked on the resolution was comprised of senate members Kyle Conley and Hattie Clark along with the Finance Chair Jarrod West.

While West supervised the team, Clark and Conley analyzed survey results and drafted a resolution that they felt fit the need of students.

According to the survey results, commuters represent approximately 88.5 percent of the total student population and these students are on campus around two to five days per week. This means that commuters on average will come to campus anywhere from 32 to 80 days within a 16-week semester. Currently, the largest meal plan offered to commuters is 35 meals a semester plus $200 in flex.

As Conley pointed out, the current commuter meal plan options only cater to the needs of those students who would less frequently be on campus.

The survey also indicated that nearly 81 percent of commuter students that participated would like the opportunity to purchase residential meal plans.

“Most commuters were interested in purchasing residential meal plans, because of such factors like money. They felt that their needs could be better met with this option, which is why we felt a need to focus on this resolution,” Conley stated.

While analyzing the survey results, neither Clark nor Conley were surprised with any of the responses in particular.

“I didn’t really find anything shocking with the results. In fact, they turned out exactly how I thought they would,” explained Clark. “What was interesting was that I knew that students wouldn’t want to pay too much more for meal plans, but they also wanted off-campus options as well. That can get a little tricky since it would cost a significant amount more to provide those options.”

Although the results fell right in line with what the team had thought, West explained just how much the survey helped in the passing of this resolution.

“The main reason we had a survey was to give us concrete evidence, instead of just making speculation,” West said. “It allows us to present a nice sample size of people that actually said that they wanted this.”

The team is still processing the information that they have gathered from the survey to see if any other resolutions could be created.