Berkeley serves up superiority

Pie in Your Face
    By Sheela V. Pai

Let me present you with a typical Yale scene. Last Sunday afternoon I was sitting on my bed in Swing Space, trying to make a dent in my Cold War reading. Suddenly I had a shocking realization: it was 5:50 p.m. My heart started racing. I grabbed my Yale ID, stumbled down four flights of stairs, and dashed across campus. I felt like Cinderella, but I was trying to get to the ball on time, not leave. With a sigh of relief, I entered the hall with my host, all with a minute to spare.

And then it happened. Some jerk standing in line behind me yelled, "If you're not in Berkeley, we don't want you here."

Yes, the great ball that I was trying to get to on time was the newly renovated Berkeley dining hall, and the jerk was an uppity Berkeleyite. Though I enjoyed my dinner, I was disturbed by the ordeal I'd endured just to get a decent meal: scrambling for a Berkeley host, nearly breaking my neck to squeeze into the 5 to 6 p.m. window for transfers, and enduring Neanderthal remarks to top it all off.

I am familiar with the token explanation for transfer restrictions—to prevent overcrowding—and I can see how Berkeleyites would get frustrated waiting in a long line to get into their own dining hall. However, I object to the message Berkeley is sending through these restrictions. "Yes, we know that we were lucky to be first in line for renovations; yes we are now blessed with better quality food, selection, and a much nicer eating environment—but since your college colors aren't the venerable red and grey, tough."

To be fair, Berkeley isn't the only dining hall guilty of transfer discrimination. Past offenders include the popular Silliman and Calhoun dining halls. But is it fair, for instance, that students in Jonathan Edwards who paid the same amount for their meal plan as students in Berkeley or Silliman, have fewer eating options open to them just because their dining hall doesn't boast a "Char BBQ" grill or a large sandwich bar?

And no one can help but sympathize with my fellow Branfordians. With our college community spread out across three different buildings, and Commons closed on weekends and Friday nights, we would welcome a pleasant, centrally-located dining hall that lets us salvage some sense of college identity. But because those Berkeleyites can't share their Eli breakfast sandwiches, we're left swallowing our sense of community until our third of Commons opens up once again.

I've also noticed an odd phenomenon that has sprouted up among quite a few Berkeleyites. They speak of their dining hall not as a college cafeteria just like any other, which it is, but as if it's an extension of Mory's. Berkeleyites actually start glowing when they describe their new haunt, as if they have gotten into some super-secret society and are still reeling from the excitement. I've even had Berkeley friends discuss the merits of balcony dining at length while casting pitying looks in my direction.

Maybe going a year without their own college dining hall really got to them, but I can't help but think that the sheer exclusiveness of it all is at least partially to blame for their strange state of euphoria.

So, on behalf of the non-Berkeley undergraduates of Yale College, in the name of culinary equality and the deflation of undergraduate egos, I now take this opportunity to appeal to the powers-that-be to rid Berkeley of transfer restrictions. In turn, we maintain that we are smart enough to remember that there are 16 other dining halls on campus should Berkeley fall victim to that dreaded overcrowding. And to all you dining hall snobs, you can call it a dining hall, an eating club, or a multi-million dollar renovation—but in the end, it's still just a school cafeteria.

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• Yale elitism: alive and kickin', 9/3/99

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