By Ashlyn Beck | News Editor
In a whirlwind beginning of a semester for Baylor Dining, Sic ‘Em Swipes for the Block 40 and Block 65 meal plans were revoked, temporarily available due to a technical error and officially reinstated.
Assistant Director for Campus Services Wil Campos said in an email to The Lariat that the decision to remove Sic ‘Em Swipes from the Block 40 and the Block 65 meal plans was officially made last April. The meal plan information, Campos said, was announced then and was available on the Dining Services website, as well as on the Baylor Eats social media.
During the 2024-2025 school year, the Block 40 and 65 meal plans included a total of three weekly Sic ‘Em Swipes to be used at select on-campus restaurants. In April, Dining Services members decided to phase out the meal swipes. As of Sept. 21, in response to student dissatisfaction over the change, Sic ‘Em Swipes returned for the Block 40 and 65 meal plans. Now, all meal plans include the swipes: All-Access 7-day Premiere and All-Access 7-day include five swipes per week; All-Access 5-day and Block 70 include three per week; and Block 65 and 40 include two per week.
Ultimately, the change was spurred by an attempt to keep meal plans affordable, according to Campos.
“Sic ‘Em Swipes are an expensive offering and continuing to include them in the Block 40 and Block 65 plans had become cost-prohibitive,” Campos said. “Although difficult, the decision was made to remove them to keep the overall plans as affordable as possible.”
Although meal swipes were removed from the two lowest block plans last year, a technical error allowed them to be used for the first two weeks of the semester. According to Campos, the glitch was fixed by the third week, and it was then that many students first realized their meal plan no longer included the swipes.
“When this mistake was corrected, it looked like a change had occurred with the meal plan, which was not the case,” the Dining Services website reads. “Instead, an error had been discovered and resolved.”
After negative feedback from students, dining services officially announced the reinstatement of Sic ‘Em Swipes to the Block 40 and Block 65 meal plans on Sept. 19, effective Sept. 21. According to Campos, the dining team understood that, though it was announced, many students didn’t understand the change in the meal plans.
According to Vice President for Student Life Dr. Sharra Hynes, the change was made without any notification to executive administrators.
From Hynes’ perspective, meal swipes are exceedingly valuable for students in a rush. Their flexibility allows students to get meals more conveniently during the school day.
“It is definitely an amenity and an asset of the meal plan that I know is highly valuable,” Hynes said.
With that, Baylor’s meal plans will include the amenity for the remainder of the 2025-26 school year, not just the semester.
“In response to the confusion, we felt adding Sic ‘Em Swipes back to this year’s meal plans was the right course of action,” Campos said. “Moving forward, Dining Services will do a better job of gathering student feedback and communicating updates.”
Hynes and Campos agreed that student feedback is valuable to university leaders. Students with any additional concerns can text Baylor Dining at 254-600-3868.
“There’s only a few of us, and there’s a lot of you,” Hynes said. “So when we don’t know about things, it’s very helpful when students share their concerns, their feedback, their perspective [and] their questions.”
