After much protest from residents, University Housing announced Saturday that the dining hall in the Betsy Barbour Residence Hall will remain operational for the 2010-2011 academic year.

At a meeting with Betsy Barbour and Helen Newberry residents last week, University officials discussed closing the dining hall in an effort to cut down on costs. If the dining hall closed, Housing said residents could eat in the North Quad Residence Hall that is scheduled to open next fall on East Washington Street.

But on Saturday, Linda Newman, director of University Housing, sent an e-mail to all Barbour and Newberry residents announcing plans to keep the dining hall open. Newman wrote in the e-mail that the meeting held last Wednesday between Housing officials and residents influenced Housing’s decision.

“The earnest views of the Barbour/Newberry community have persuaded us to continue to provide meal service at Betsy Barbour Hall next year,” Newman wrote in the e-mail.

University Housing spokesman Peter Logan said in an interview yesterday that officials decided to keep the dining hall open because residents expressed that it is a very important factor in unifying their community.

“We went back and looked at the impact on the community versus a potential cost savings of closing the dining operation,” Logan said. “(We) determined that keeping Barbour dining in place next year was a much better choice for the benefit of that community than trying to save some dollars by closing it.”

Logan said the deliberations about closing the Barbour Dining Hall were part of Housing’s annual budgetary process. He said closing the dining hall would have saved Housing about $400,000.

Because Housing is independently financed, Logan said a majority of its operating budget is obtained via room and board payments. He added that Housing officials try to trim the budget every year in an effort to reduce the amount of money students need to pay to live in the residence halls.

“We are looking at a number of different places within our operating budget as we prepare recommendations for room and board next year,” Logan said. “Barbour dining was one of those cost efficiency opportunities that we looked at. We also look at things like overtime expenditures, what we can do to trim administrative costs, where we might be able to consolidate or streamline other operations within Housing.”

But, Logan said it’s too early in the budgetary process to tell what other Housing services could be cut instead of closing the Barbour dining hall or if room and board rates would have to be raised to compensate.

Logan said one of the reasons a decision on the dining hall’s fate was reached so quickly was because Housing officials wanted to give students time to decide whether they wanted to return to live in Barbour or Newberry next year, adding that the dining hall may have played a key role in students’ decisions.

“We realized the timing had gotten to a point where if we couldn’t give them a clear idea whether or not there would be dining, those residents were placed in an awkward position as to whether or not they would really want to return there,” Logan said.

Barbour residents were relieved their beloved dining hall would remain open next year. Signs were posted on doors throughout halls urging neighbors to e-mail Housing encouraging officials to keep the dining hall open.

LSA sophomore Amy Richardson, a Barbour resident, said maintaining dining facilities was “extremely important” to the residents.

“I think it just proves how close-knit this community is and how much of an effort they put in to save these kinds of institutions,” she said. “You see these things on the door. Someone went around and put these all up just to get people more motivated.