Snack is part of the Pomona experience. The food isn’t always great; the lines are often long, and sometimes the Coke machine breaks down. Nonetheless, it has become a sort of entitlement for Pomona students. That’s why, when prospective students come to town, the admissions office gives them a certificate for snack: a yellow card that when exchanged at Frary will make a prospie feel like a real Pomona student.

Last week, I hosted a prospie named John (not his real name) and because of a bureaucratic error, his snack card was not stamped as required. No problem, I thought: Have the kid flash the temporary ID and proceed directly to snack.

That’s what we tried—unsuccessfully. The half a dozen people there with me vouched that John was a prospie and not a CMC student who had broken into Summner Hall and stolen a free snack card.

No dice. Dining hall management accused John of trying to defraud them out of snack. Dining hall management was paranoid, unreasonable, and downright mean.

Faced with the possibility that my prospie would be denied the snack experience, I picked up the tab. I didn’t mind paying for snack, John’s company and sharing my Pomona experience was worth much more than two dollars.

Nor did I mind the fact that John’s snack that evening consisted of a diluted soda. Those soda machines never seem to work anyway. What bothered me was that I came to Pomona College precisely because it was a community that still believed in trust and human integrity. It was the kind of community I wanted to show my prospie.

I couldn’t do that because, as I spoke of a tightly knit community based on mutual trust and respect, Frary management seriously undermined those claims and humiliated John. Pomona is a small college of exceptional people, and because of this, we place more confidence in individuals. I wish dining hall management did.

If a certificate for a free McDonalds’ hamburger had lacked a certification stamp and then been denied, I would understand. McDonalds is not part of a community that claims to believe in trust and respect.

Nonetheless, my experience is that a certificate for a free hamburger would probably be accepted with assurance that it was legitimate.

Most people have neither the time nor inclination to go around stealing or forging free hamburger tickets. Even in a world of diminished expectations trust still counts in most places: most places, that is, except Snack.

The dining hall is a business. Marriott runs it. It’s not surprising, then, that its staff and management would have a businesslike mentality and would be a little more skeptical than most people on campus.

However, they serve at the pleasure of the college and need to uphold its values. Trust, integrity, decency, and most importantly, respect are values fundamental to this educational community.

Frary management sneered at those values when they denied John snack. If Marriott wishes to ignore these values, the college should consider replacing them with another provider or managing the dining halls themselves.

I admit, working and running the dining hall is a hard job. However, all that is really needed is a small amount of common courtesy and reason.

Most people, even in our jaded age, are capable of this. Dining hall management needs to be aware of the values of the community and uphold them.

Most of the staff does this very well, but when management behaves in a way that violates these principles it hurts the educational community.