We always complain about the lack of school spirit at Binghamton University, and we’re sure you’re tired of hearing about it. So today, we’ve got a way to fix the problem: late-night weekend dining on campus.

What?

Every Friday and Saturday night, hundreds of BU students make the 3 a.m. pilgrimage from the Downtown bars to nearby pizza joints, where they wait in long lines to spend thousands of dollars — and then they go home and go to bed (whose bed is another matter). In this scenario, campus is nothing more than a place to crash, with all the late-night socializing occurring in the dark confines of State Street watering holes and in the closing-time rush of those cramped eateries.

But what if there was a place to eat on campus that was open when the bars closed? A safe place just a short walk from the dorms — that took meal cards?

Think about it: inebriated Bearcats, instead of stumbling into Rocky’s to find that the bathroom is once again nocturnally out of order, could just hop into a cab and head on down to, say, the New University Union. There, they’d be able to meet and eat with others, spending meal-card money instead of cash on whatever Sodexho decided to offer.

The Union could actually get to live up to its name: instead of daytime segregation and greek dominance setting the tone of the place, students from all walks of BU life, whose only common trait is that they’re hungry on a Friday or Saturday night, could congregate and — gasp — have a place to socialize outside of their dorms. There would be none of the less desirable element allowed (read: old creepy guys whose goal is to get their boots under a college girl’s bed) in the place, either: BU’s State University Police could keep an eye on things as they see fit.

A 24-hour eatery would also cater (no pun intended) to students who are up and about before the bleary-eyed 11 a.m. opening time of the dining halls, or who don’t come home until after the halls close at 7 p.m.

Financially, it makes sense, too. It looks like Sodexho is sitting on a gold mine: a late-night dining option would be in direct competition with the State Street pizza/wings/subs joints. This would work out better for both students, who get the convenience of on-campus dining late at night and the use of their meal cards, and Sodexho, which gets to exploit a market that has remained inexplicably untapped.

All the imperfect solutions BU students use to quell their late-night munchies — pizza-and-wings delivery, Denny’s, even The Spot on Upper Front Street for those who have cars — flourish because they fill a need the University can and should be providing. It’s a power vacuum that Sodexho has the power to implode with a 24-hour facility on campus, market share just waiting to be stolen away from competitors by the convenience of a location just steps from where students live — where they don’t even have to pay with their own money.

Those profits could help pay to keep the Union open late. But it’s likely that Sodexho would have to raise campus dining fees to pay for it. That’s something we’re comfortable with. Are you?

Bob Griffin, Sodexho’s marketing manager on campus, said that the contract dining company is open to suggestions. “If there are a lot of calls, we do take a look at that stuff,” Griffin says in today’s Page 1 story about weekend dining options.

If you feel the way we do, let Sodexho know: e-mail Bob Griffin at rgriffin@binghamton.edu, or leave him a message at 607-777-7259. Be respectful, but get the point across: dining plays a large part in formulating a school’s spirit. Sodexho can and should do more.