Each summer, Amherst College supplies children from various day camps and summer programs with food, housing, and access to its facilities. The college also allows the summer programs to use Amherst’s Campus Calender for their specific uses, furnishes them with IT user names, and allows the camps themselves to use golf carts on the walk paths.
The large numbers of children make being on campus during the summer a particularly surreal experience for Amherst students. Walking though the freshman quad today, it suddenly dawned on me that I was the tallest person in the area, which became even more strange when, for an instant, it seemed as if every Amherst student had been swiftly replaced with a younger version of his or herself. Children with backpacks walked together in pairs and in groups. They were loud, they were oftentimes obnoxious.
“I have a terrible backhand,” one child said. “But if you catch me serving, you’d better watch out!”
But they are still children. This becomes evident in Valentine hall, an environment not adapted for people of such small stature. For them, receiving dishes from the servers requires an unavoidable reaching up, and the trays are oftentimes wider than the children themselves. Their small hands clutch the silver tongs with difficulty as they reach for bunches of grapes. They stand on the tips of their toes as they press their glasses to the soda dispenser. Walking among them, it becomes quite apparent that the world is a difficult place for people of their size. They seem to wander around aimlessly at times and, to experienced Amherst students, quickly become tiresome.
The lower level of Valentine is reserved for the children, with the upper level being dedicated to “quiet adult groups.” The noise does not restrict itself to the lower floor, however, and one often becomes subject to the various highbrow conversations of the children.
” Ha! Look at his face,” one child exclaimed with an air of discovery. “He does look like pikachu.”
“He looks more like cow poop to me,” said another, scoffing.
That is not to say that all of the children are less than nine years out of their mothers’ wombs. The assortment of camps ensures that that there are children of all ages on campus during the summer. One program in particular, Excel, consists of class components where older students tackle the tough questions, including, but not limited to, whether or not “Chuck Klosterman is a pretentious jerk.”
One can’t complain, though. The dining hall would be completely empty if the children were not around. The campus itself would be deserted. Thus it is not a stretch to say that it is preferable to have hundreds of hyperactive children screaming around you then to have no one at all.
Food Management Magazine, a mainstay of any college, business, or hospital looking to improve its dining services, recently wrote a feature on UMass Amherst Dining Services’s complete amazingness.
The June article details the various improvements the folks over at UMass have made during the fast few years, including (but certainly not limited to) its Breakfast on the Run program and the renovation of UMass’s Berkshire Commons.
One of the more interesting factoids featured in the article concerned itself with the actual number of people that utilize the Dining Services facilities:
The proof of its popularity lies in the numbers: the meal plan base currently stands at 13,000 despite the fact that there are only 11,000 resident students, and only the 7,700 resident freshmen and sophomores are required to purchase meal plans.
These numbers are staggering if you compare them to the situation at Amherst, where, though just about all Amherst students eat at Valentine Hall each day, most students wish they didn’t have to.
My question is this: How can a huge school like UMass administer the “Boutique Philosophy” better than a small school like Amherst? Is it simply a result of a difference in vision? Funds?
Mark this news as at least one reason why going to UMass is more wonderful than going to Amherst. You can read the whole Food Management article here.
