Ed Board has had mixed feelings about the Umphrey Lee cafeteria in the past. Plastic cups, good idea. Plastic bowls, bad idea.

Today, however, we’re rather annoyed.

There are many reasons for this, but the first is inconvenience.

When a student walks into Umphrey Lee before an 11 a.m. class, around 10:40 a.m. perhaps, they are limited to one meal choice — cereal.

This is because RFOC has set hours for each meal. Lunch doesn’t open until 11 a.m., but the breakfast options are usually all put away by 10:30 a.m.

Thus, the unfortunate student has to either subsist on cereal and stale donuts, or wait until lunch to get a burger and be late to class.

There are easy ways to fix this problem, the first being simply a slightly earlier lunch period. If lunch goes up at 10:45 a.m., then students would have time to get a real meal before starting an hours-long block of classes.

Another option, used by schools such as the University of Texas, is to serve “brunch,” breakfast and lunch simultaneously.

This may not be appropriate for SMU as the cafeteria is rather small, but it’s a thought.

Ed Board’s next beef with Umphrey Lee is sanitation.

The place can be rather unpleasant, with workers serving without gloves, and perishables, such as mayonnaise, unrefrigerated all day.

Now, Ed Board knows that hands really aren’t that unsanitary, but it still seems gross.

And supposedly commercial mayonnaise can be left unrefrigerated, but we’d rather not have to find out.

Another sanitary concern is the way foods are replaced. Commercial regulations state that old food in bins should be thrown out and replaced with the new.

This is not the case in Umphrey Lee, however. Often the new is just dumped in on top of the old. And although Umphrey Lee has a high turnover in terms of how fast food is used up (pasta has to be replaced as often as twice in an hour), this is still a possible health risk.

To conclude, Ed Board isn’t saying that Umphrey Lee is unsanitary or unhealthy, just that it could be said to have that appearance.

We would also like to see the cafeteria adopt more student friendly hours such as in the morning and on weekends. Why must Umphrey Lee close at 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights? What about the students who aren’t able to go off campus or don’t have the financial means to for dinner?

Well, Ed Board is hungry; it’s time to get a burger.