Div Dictionary: Refectory

Refectory (n.): Sterling Divinity Quadrangle’s source for meals, unless you REALLY like vending machine food.

Since back-to-back classes on Holy Hill don’t really give you enough time to get down to Yale’s main campus and back for lunch, SDQ is equipped with it’s own cafeteria and dining hall, known as the refectory. The refectory is open from around 7am until 2pm every day, and serves sandwiches, hot lunch entrees, packaged stuff and salads. There’s a grill in the back that I always forget about, and enough soda choices to make anyone happy (until they run out of Diet Coke, which makes me distinctly unhappy).

When you begin the school year, you’ll automatically be charged a $400 board fee. 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 $400 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.

To spend $400, 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 (the chapel team puts out a basket and make sure it gets to a deserving charity). Some commuting students buy more than they need to take home to hungry kids or spouses. The staff will also take your points at the end of a term and use them when students like me come to the register with $8.00 worth of food and only $6.57 remaining on their card balance. You could also just be me, and be on campus almost every day for lunch, and run through $400 in no time.

This all sounds a little silly, but please remember – the refectory is hardly a money-making operation. It’s a service provided to us so that we don’t have to rely on the vending machines, or troop all the way down to Commons every day. The refectory also provides space for the community to eat together (in a scant 77 seats, so it’s more like a portion of the community). There’s even a community kitchen in the back where you can store and warm up food, as well as use and wash plates and utensils – remember, jut a few minutes spent over the sink will help reduce YDS’s carbon footprint!

-Kate