This academic year, Carleton College is developing Phase III of the Student Housing Project, which will renovate Douglas, Rice, Page and Parish Houses as well as Davis Hall.
The aim of this project is to “enhance diversity, equity and inclusion within each housing facility” and “extend the useful life of the buildings for 30-50 years,” among other guiding principles stated in the Phase III Site Plan and Renderings, according to the Facilities website. The construction is expected to conclude before Fall Term in 2026.
Until then, these residential buildings and houses are not available for students. In previous years, Douglas has served as Carleton’s Christian interest house, while Page has served as the Jewish interest house in its east section and the Muslim interest house in its west section. During the renovations, the religious communities will be housed in a different on-campus building, Eugster House.
“The religious interest houses are places to have religious programs and to worship,” said Rev. Schuyler Vogel, college chaplain. “They allow students to live residentially according to their religious practices.”
“So you have students, for example, who need to live in a single-gender community space, or students who can only eat in certain ways or certain things,” Vogel added. “They’re [the religious interest houses] are really important community and residential spaces that allow students to basically be themselves in a way they can’t anywhere else on campus.”
“At Carleton for many years, there has been a Jewish interest house which has allowed students to live in community with one another in a Jewish space,” said Sophie Stein ’26, president of the Jewish Students of Carleton (JSC) and Chaplain’s Associate for Jewish life. “A big part of that is a kosher kitchen.”
“This year, there are no kosher kitchens on campus,” said Stein. Neither Eugster House nor Watson Hall — the building where the Chapel and the JSC are hosting Shabbat this year — has been kashered, which means the space has been made kosher by cleaning surfaces and appliances with boiling water.
All students from the Class of 2027 onward are required to register for a dining meal plan, according to a Carleton Today newsletter. The administration introduced this requirement to continue efforts to combat food insecurity on campus and ensure that campus houses remain equitable living spaces for students of all financial backgrounds.
The meal plan requirement, coupled with the ongoing renovation of the Jewish and Muslim interest houses, has exacerbated religious students’ concerns about their ability to observe dietary laws on campus. Bon Appétit, Carleton’s dining services provider, uses icons on the daily menus to designate halal meals and ingredients. A kosher icon is not available, and students report that the halal label does not always guarantee that meals meet halal standards.
“This is something that we’ve been fighting for for multiple years,” said Abdulrahman Mohamed ’26, vice president of the Muslim Student Association (MSA) and resident of the Muslim Interest House. “Most of the time, [BonApp] doesn’t know what halal is. They just think if something doesn’t have pork it must be halal, but a lot of things could be non-halal depending on how you make them.”
“Avoding pork and shellfish in the dining hall is relatively doable, separating meat and dairy can be doable in the dining hall, often people just go vegetarian,” said Stein. “But for folks who are looking for strict observance around separate dishes or making sure there’s never pork or shellfish in contact with anything, the Jewish house is the only place for that.”
At the Oct. 6 CSA Senate meeting, Dean of Students Carolyn Livingston was asked if the administration had considered offering different meal plans for students who observe dietary laws.
“I think the BonApp people can talk about that, and we have not promised any religious meal plans for any student,” Livingston said, according to the meeting minutes. “There are things that the dining hall can do and meet with students, but religious plans are not promised to students.”
“When I first heard that, I was a little shocked. It felt like [the administration] didn’t want to consider the cultural experiences of religious students,” said Mohamed. “If we literally cannot eat half the food in Burton or half the food at LDC, but we’re still paying for the meal plan, we don’t actually get help with food insecurity, which is the whole goal of the meal plan, to make sure students are regularly fed and not going hungry.”
In an email to The Carletonian, Livingston stated that the only possible exemption for the required meal plan is available through the Office of Accessibility Resources (OAR) due to medical reasons.
“I think it’s important to think about first-year students who abide by kosher law and cannot draw into the Jewish interest house,” said Vogel. First-year students are randomly assigned to one of seven residence halls and are required to be on the 20-meal plan.
“For future Muslim first-year students, it feels like they have no support system, they don’t have the flexibility of being off-board to use the money they use for the meal plan to buy halal ingredients,” said Mohamed.
“The lack of flexibility with the meal plan can make Jewish students [who observe Kosher laws] reluctant to come to Carleton in the first place,” said Associate Chaplain for Jewish and Interfaith Life Rav Michaela Brown.
Other concerns include observing specific dietary laws during religious events, such as Ramadan.
“In Ramadan, for example, when you’re fasting for most of the afternoon, sunset won’t be until like 7 p.m., which most of the time LDC will be closed,” said Mohamed. “I know from previous years that the MSA Board talked with BonApp to help students indicate that they are observing Ramadan and get a reduced meal plan or get refunded for the month, but then they just go back to the meal plan and the dining hall, where halal is not guaranteed.”
“It just felt really dismissive of the many students who might want to keep a higher observant level of kosher that’s not available right now,” said Stein, referring to Livingston’s statement at the Oct. 6 CSA Senate Meeting. “Carleton doesn’t have any sort of kosher symbol in the dining hall, which I think would require some infrastructure the college doesn’t have, but that’s why I think making exceptions to the meal plan for religious accommodations is important.”
On Friday, Oct. 10, Vogel shared a newsletter through the Office of the Chaplain titled “Why Exceptions Matter.”
“Because Carleton cares about honoring students and employees from different backgrounds and beliefs, we are called to be sensitive to the need for religious accommodations,” the newsletter read, “We want to make sure that everybody has the ability to eat food according to their religion at Carleton.”
