Unions and Students Say to Yale: Bring Back Commons! October 28, 2011

During lunchtime on October 28, over 100 students and workers attended a speak out to protest the Yale administration’s decision to close Commons Dining Hall for dinner.

Since 1901, the Yale community has gathered at Commons in the evening to share meals, friendship, and ideas with people from across the campus; in 2010, administrators made a decision to sacrifice Yale tradition for cost savings and close Commons for dinner.

Chanting “Bring Back Commons” between speeches, the crowd heard from a coalition of union members and undergraduates. Stuart Comen, a cook in Silliman College, held up his memorial T-shirt from the 1990s, the last time the Yale administration decided to close Commons. After a campaign led by students and workers, it reopened in 1999. “This decision threatens an important Yale tradition because Commons is the central social and meeting spot for the Yale community,” explained Stu, “for many of us, Commons is a special place. I even met my wife there.”

For others in the Yale community-graduate teachers and undergraduate athletes-Commons was often the only viable choice at night. “As a graduate teacher living in the Hall of Graduate Studies, Commons was the only option for dinner after my late seminars,” said Jenna Healey, a GESO member from the History Department, “Now we have to go to already overcrowded college dining halls.”

The closing of Commons has hit athletes and student groups particularly hard. Before the speakout, a group of undergraduates distributed leaflets to the parents on campus for Family Weekend. Jonah Quinn, a senior who leafleted and spoke during the demonstration, said that “many of my athlete friends can no longer meet as a team after practice because there is no space large enough except for Commons.” He added, “Like many others, my best memories at Yale happened in Commons over good food and conversation.”