During the summer term, the Dining Commons in Blanchard Hall operates select stations on a modified schedule. Photo by Max Paster ’25
By Paige Comeau ’26
Staff Writer
As the season winds to a close, students who stayed on Mount Holyoke College’s campus this summer reflected on their experiences with the food options available in the Dining Commons through interviews with Mount Holyoke News.
In the past, MHN has spoken to students and alumni about their varied dining experiences on campus, ranging from fond memories of favorite foods to recollections of food-related illnesses. To understand the student dining experience more broadly, MHN reached out to students on campus during this past summer term and asked them to share their insight into the College’s summer dining options. Dining Services declined to comment for this article.
Zoey Zhu ’27 stayed briefly on campus this summer as a counselor for the Nike Swim Camp, held between July 7 and 10. Although her time on campus was only four days long, Zhu reported that she was extremely happy with her dining experience, particularly with “the availability of a variety of fruit because I usually don't get to see that over the school year.” She mentioned blueberries, sourced locally from Maine, as an example.
“I always had a rainbow of good-quality foods to choose from,” Zhu stated in an interview with Mount Holyoke News. “Overall, for a summer dining hall, I thought it was fantastic. I wasn't expecting so much variety and options to be available, because in my past experience at other dining halls, it is usually rather limited.”
Zhu also commented positively on the dessert served in the dining hall, especially the peach ice cream, which is not normally available, and the special gluten-free cookies staff provided for counselors with dietary restrictions.
The only major issue Zhu had with summer dining was the etiquette of the campers, many of whom were under eighteen, when using the Dining Commons. She disclosed that “unfortunately some of the other people there from other camps were not informed of how tongs needed to be kept to one specific food, so there was some cross-contamination.” Zhu noted that the Dining Services staff quickly cleared up the confusion.
This issue of etiquette was also observed by Grace Simpson ’25, who stayed on campus for much of the summer as a student researcher. Simpson reported that there was “a degree of tension between some of the campers and the students working on campus” largely due to the ignorance around proper usage of the Dining Commons.
While Simpson believed much of this tension came from simple mistakes, like when campers “make messes and don’t clean up” or “block the stations or cut in line,” other times it felt entirely “disrespectful and invasive.”
“I watched a girl from one of the sports camps scrape food off her plate and back into a serving dish,” Simpson stated. “I wasn’t having rice for dinner after that.”
Aside from the campers’ confusion, Simpson reported a relatively positive experience. Like Zhu, she noted both the fruit and dessert as a particularly enjoyable part of summer dining. Simpson’s only other complaint surrounded the availability of certain stations during the summer, such as Baraka, L’Chaim and Classics. The College’s online menu shows that the Baraka and L’Chaim stations are open with limited hours, while the Classics station appears to be unavailable entirely.
While she acknowledges limited staffing and resources during the summer, Simpson does believe that “we as a community strive towards a culture of accessibility and inclusion,” and that she “would like to see dining options that reflect that.”
Quill Leonard ’27 contributed fact-checking.