Smashed muffins, potato chips and half-eaten lunches have introduced a new type of prohibition: Students can no longer consume food or beverages, with the exception of water, in Penn State classrooms. The university upholds the position that this initiative will help maintain a cleaner classroom environment. While this is obviously true, this policy comes at the expense of the same students whose tuition goes toward taking those classes.

Most Penn State students manage a packed schedule as they juggle class, work and extracurricular activities, leaving little time for leisurely dining throughout the day. If given the chance, no student would choose eating lunch crammed into a plastic lecture chair over eating lunch at a table in the HUB. Students eat during class out of necessity, not luxury. For instance, if a student has back-to-back classes from 8 a.m. to noon, they either have to wake up even earlier or go without their morning bagel and coffee. Or, it's not uncommon for students who live farther off campus to only take classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, resulting in back-to-back classes from 9:45 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The grid-lock-like crowd that occupies the HUB in the half an hour between the midday block of classes is proof of exactly how many people are trying to fit in lunch outside the classroom.

Time constraints aside, this policy also inconveniences students with medical conditions that mandate they eat on a regular basis. If a student has diabetes and is experiencing low blood sugar, eating is one of the quickest fixes. Would a doctor's note be necessary for situations such as this? If so, couldn't this student feel more uncomfortable as the only student eating in class? This policy requires students to disclose personal medical conditions, something they may have wanted to keep under wraps.

University officials say anyone caught violating the policy may be subject to disciplinary action through judicial affairs. But how many professors will really enforce this policy? For new professors, or those with smaller classes, the easiest way to alienate themselves from the students is to take away what could be a student's only chance to eat during the day.

The university also claims that in a classroom it is easier to leave trash behind because students are "faceless and nameless" and less likely to be noticed. However, that is only true in large classrooms, such as those found in Forum, where it is also easier to sneak food in, regardless of the new policy. In the smaller classrooms, such as Willard, where it is easier for professors to enforce the policy, students are already more noticeable and less likely to leave trash behind. Eating in classrooms may be considered a privilege by administrators, but it is a privilege Penn State students do not deserve to have lost.