Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. See the about page to read more about the DG.
Many Swatties have noticed the disappearance of mints from Sharples. The Daily Gazette decided to find out why they are no longer available.
Janet Kassab, Director of Purchasing for Dining Services, explained that the mints were originally the idea of Linda McDougall, Director of Dining Services, as a nice extra service to provide for students. However, Kassab noticed that many students would take several or even handfuls of mints while leaving Sharples. This practice, combined with the increase in the price of mints along with all other products that Dining Services serves, led Kassab to stop purchasing the mints.
Kassab is open to purchasing the mints again if there is some assurance that students will take only one mint and not several. Some ideas that came up during our meeting were putting up a sign telling students to take only one or to purchase a certain number of mints for each week and not restocking them when they run out until the next week. Do you have any ideas? Please post them in the comments.
Got any other questions about disappearing Sharples food? E-mail us at dailygazette@swarthmore.edu
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I see a simple solution: give one mint for every meal used on a plan when a student’s card is swiped.
What if there was some sort of dispenser that made taking “handfuls” of mints, not necessarily impossible, just tedious?
And…does anyone remember those mints that had hard candy shells and a chewy center? They should bring those back instead.
I hope you guys get the mints back. On another note, I really miss the “ask the gazette” line that went along with these articles. When I used to look at the headlines, I would be interested to read these articles because I knew in advance that they would be cool because they were questions coming from the Swat community. I think it also helps people to remember that the service exists in case they ever need it. “Ask the gazette” has a nice ring to it too :-).
In the near future, the ATG line will be more prominent in the header of these pages—I seemed redundant to add it to every article for when they’d show up in the archive page, however. (Here: http://daily.swarthmore.edu/category/features/atg/ )
If StuCo DOES decide to cut Take-Your-Prof-to-Lunch funding, then we have another good use for the funds…mints…
I don’t understand why I can’t take more than one mint- I can have more than one plate of food, I can have more than one glass of soda, why not mints?
It doesn’t matter that I’m not going to eat them in Sharples, I’m on the meal plan and it’s not like I’m replacing a meal with them.
Sounds like a BS excuse to me. Also “increase in the price of mints”? Wholesale those mints are probably 5 cents each, if that.
THIS IS A BIG DEAL
Maybe if I didn’t want to get the taste of Sharples out of my mouth so much I wouldn’t have to take so many mints.
Um… are people taking several mints really a giant problem? If a student wants to binge on mints, I say let them have their fistful of mints!
as one of those people who often took more than one mint, i can say that a simple notification of the fact that you are expected to take only one mint at the most, would do the trick. it’s not something i was aware of before.
This was one of the worst things about returning to Swat from abroad.
The Dining Services employees are sitting right next to the mints, so how hard is it for them to enforce a one mint per person rule? Oh, and green mints own.
As it turns out, red mints are superior. Green mints are for sissy tree-huggers and hippies. Don’t be fooled!
Red mints are for communists. Don’t support their America-hating habits!
The mints are back!
Just buy more mints!
We pay almost $47,000 a year…and we can’t afford to buy more MINTS!?!?!
And…why can’t you take more than one?
You did pay for them.
i do NOT sympathize with Dining Services on that one.
buy the mints!
And if you want people to take less, have someone actually sit at the desk.