Div Dictionary: Refectory

Div Dictionary: Refectory

Refectory (n.): Sterling Divinity Quadrangle’s source for meals.

Josh did a great job talking about some of the food options off the hill. He missed out on one thing: the Carts. So here’s an aside on the Carts, before I get going about the Refectory at the Div School (wow, that’s a lot of capital letters on words that don’t always get them).

The Carts are one of the most affordable ways to get lots of food options. Mexican, Thai, Ethiopian, Thai, Indian, Thai, Thai, and Thai are all available. They’re located at a few places, the nearest cluster to us being outside the School of Management.

$4-$7...cash, not Eli Bucks... gets you a great lunch, only a 5-7 minute walk away. Think about that: you essentially pay a dollar for each minute you walk, and get free food. Some people pay rates like that just to walk on a treadmill at the gym, and so you’re getting both a workout AND food. Great times.

For those of you who have 3 classes in a row some days, and cannot enjoy the glories of HGS or Commons, Mother Yale has given the Div School its own dining hall, known as the Refectory. It is open every day from 7:30a.m.-2p.m., serving breakfast stuff (egg sandwiches are usually not an option until about 7:45 a.m., fair warning), lunch, and snackie-stuff. There are four main areas: a ‘hot dish’ area where you find daily hot options and soups (such as baked chicken with mashed sweet potatoes, ziti, or various Indian foods over rice). The salad line bar is next, comes with three kinds of greens and lots of fixings that I can’t talk too much about since I pretty much ignore that area. Third is the cold area, where you can get pre-made sandwiches, drinks, sushi, hummus snacks, fruit, etc. Again, I know little. Finally, my favorite…the grill. Good times were had by all there. At least in the short run until arteries clog and such. But seriously, good times in the short run.

As Josh said, when you begin the school year, you’ll automatically be charged a board fee (Eli Bucks). You’ll get that money back though – it’s loaded onto your student ID so that you can use it to purchase food at lunch or between classes (or, for the ambitious among us, before classes too). If you don’t use up all the money in the fall semester, it will roll over to the spring semester. If you don’t use up all that money during the spring semester, you will never see it again. This leads to many people spending lots of money at the end of the year and carrying cartloads of food out the door.

To spend the money, you may need to employ a little strategy. Since the refectory stocks canned goods and household items, you can buy a lot of tissues or buy cans and donate them at Marquand Chapel (for those in need at the school that the Chapel Team has been made aware of, and also those in other locations around the area). Some commuting students buy more than they need to take home to hungry kids or spouses. You could also just be me, and spend money like a sieve, and be forced to beg from your counterparts who are better with their money.

Here is a point that needs to be said a few times, just as it was to us last year: the refectory is hardly a money-making operation. The refectory is designed to provide space for the community to eat together, a remnant of the old Refectory…and a throwback to the crazy notion that people actually can become a community through sharing food. Insane, I know, but they think it can happen. (In case my glibness is hard to read: I agree with that completely, and I truly think that the Refectory is one of the best ways for us to come together as a community. We don’t always use it very well, but I firmly believe that if you share a meal with someone, there is less chance you will dislike them. The Refectory is one of the many gifts at YDS, and often under-utilized for the benefit it could give us as individuals, as colleagues, and as classmates.)

You will find some professors eating there all the time--John Collins, Chloe Starr, Denys Turner among the most common profs who take an active interest in eating with students and engaging them in this space. You will also find that the staff is great. Seriously. You are lucky to have them here, and you will realize this time and time again over the next few years I trust.

So, there you have it. Food is good for community, we have a place to get food and community right in our halls, so those of you who run away to HGS or Commons are just anti-social. That’s the moral to draw from this, right?