Every school year brings new changes to Ashland University. Starting this fall, students will notice these changes right away as they are happening in a place AU student’s visit almost every day, the John C. Myers Convocation Center.

Ashland University’s Dining Services is now offering new meal plan options for students to pick from and have changed the names of the existing meal plans.

“We changed the names of them [meal plans] so that there was some distinction and went along with the Ashland University theme,” said the General Manger of Dining Operation, Fred Geib.

The dining service’s school spirited makeover will feature a new meal plan option for the incoming freshman. The Tuffy, Eagle, Purple, and Gold plans will be the options students have when selecting a meal plan for the year.

Similar to last year, this fall the freshman will be required to have the Purple Plan, which gives students unlimited meal access at Convo. The difference this year is that freshman can now upgrade to the Gold plan. This plan will feature unlimited meals at the Convocation Center plus $250 in Flex Dining Dollars.

“Those [Flex Dining Dollars] are different than eagle dollars in that they can only use those in dining services,” said Geib.

The Gold plan is exactly $250 more than the Purple plan, which is where the $250 Flex Dining Dollars come from.

The plan was created to give freshmen more flexibility. Close to 100 freshmen have already signed up for the new meal plan this year, and dining services are expecting more students to sign up for the plan as the school year begins.

“It gives freshman the ability to go to concessions during game time, Eagles Nest, and Tuffy’s Smoothie Bar,” said Geib.

The new Gold plan fills the spot of the 160-block plan, which was discontinued this year. Geib stated the reasoning for cutting the 160 block plan was because it had the least participation, and financially did not make sense.