About Us
The Gavel's Diatribe acts as the satirical medium for short rants over topics ranging from complete triviality to utmost importance.
How many of us stood in line for Late Night last year and thought to ourselves: “Wow, mozz sticks again? This would be so much better if they sold Meatball Obsession and one or two flavors of locally sourced ice cream”? I know I didn’t.
Perhaps no decision this year has rocked Lower Campus quite as hard as the shift of Late Night upstairs to Addie’s. The beloved buffet of junk food previously served between 9:00 p.m. and midnight (or 2:00 a.m. on weekends) now includes more fixtures from the farm-fresh dining menu on the second floor of Lower Dining Hall. This change includes less mozzarella sticks, and students are not happy about it. Following the initial outrage, BC Dining released a ridiculous email under the subject line “You asked. We listened,” attempting to explain the relocation as a staffing issue and reassure us all that Late Night is not in need of saving. Well I am here to speak on behalf of all those slighted mozzarella sticks and unhappy students when I say, I am by no means reassured.
The change wouldn’t be so jarring if they simply sold the usual Late Night fare on the second floor instead of the first, but that is not the case. Instead, Addie’s offers such gems as cereal and fruit, with the possibility of snagging one or two large meatballs or maybe a hot sub. While the email emphasized that Addie’s does serve more options, these options exclude two of the most popular Late Night snacks from the menu five days of the week. Mozzarella sticks and chicken tenders were bolded with two horrible asterisks on the menu included in the Dining Services’ email, clarifying that our “fried favorites” would only be served on Friday and Saturday nights.
I believe the main flaw of the new set-up is that it operates under the assumption that most of us only ever get Late Night on the weekends. BC Dining seemingly thinks that party-going students really only show up at Lower howling for chicken tenders on Saturday nights. But what about all of us unfortunate souls with evening chemistry labs? What about the night class attendees and the athletes and band geeks with practice until 9:00 p.m.?
Then there’s the assertion that the lines somehow moves faster now because students pay before getting their food. Let me address that simply by saying, I’ve waited longer for a single meatball this year than I ever did for a whole meal of chicken tenders and fries at the old Late Night
Of course, one might say that we could always go to Mac, or even trek to Stuart, but that defeats an important attribute of Late Night: convenience. The fact is that there is no longer a convenient way for a sophomore in Walsh to get mozzarella sticks and fries on a Thursday night. Ultimately, Late Night has been fundamentally altered for at least 50% of the student body for the majority of the week, and the only explanation we received was that BC Dining is having trouble staffing the late-night shifts. Perhaps this is the case, but I think it’s fair to say we deserve a more adequate justification for these changes. Why is it easier to staff Addie’s than Lower? Why is there less trouble staffing Mac and Stuart? If we ask this, will they listen?
BC Dining thinks they can fool us with a friendly email, but keep those #savelatenight stickers on your laptops, comrades. Late Night is not saved.
Meaghan Wallace is a biology major and journalism minor at Boston College who writes bios and Gavel articles to avoid doing physics homework.
