Harvard Looks at Late-Night Student Meals

The late-night pizza run is as much a part of the collegiate experience as midterms and tailgating.

Realizing that the 5 p.m. dinner hour isn’t filling hungry college stomachs into the wee hours, Harvard is considering cooking up a late-night meal for its undergraduates.

The nation’s oldest college may join the ranks of other colleges nationwide in cooking a second dinner of sorts to fuel late-night studying.

“The lifestyle of today’s student is such that the clock is not the governor,” Frank Gladu, director of food services at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, told the Boston Globe. “Sitting down to breakfast, lunch and dinner is about as antiquated as you can get in terms of providing food service to today’s students.”

Many Harvard students go to bed about 3 a.m.--and not just during midterms and finals.

“We eat at 5, but by the time we go to sleep at 3 a.m., we’re hungry again,” said freshman Minnie Quach, 18.

Administrators said they began to realize just how late students were staying up when they saw e-mails dated from predawn hours.

The idea of later meals first arose last year, when Harvard cafeterias set out midnight bagels, cereal and coffee cake during final exams. Students said the school should do it all year.

The university must now decide how to expand the meal plan without bumping up the cost of room and board.

They also need to decide what time to serve it. Some want it about 11 p.m.; others want it as late as 2 a.m. And administrators must figure out if the meal will be a snack or something more substantive.