Valentine Dining Hall to Become Exclusive Athlete Center

On Friday, the administration announced in an email to The Student that Valentine Dining Hall (Val) will be rebranded as the Valentine Athlete Recreation & Study Institution for Teams and Youth (VARSITY) and is scheduled to open in the summer of 2027. The email stated that construction on the dining hall will commence next fall semester, as opposed to the original plan to demolish the building in 2030.

VARSITY will include amenities such as a main dining space, an indoor track, a protein-focused café, a screening theatre for reviewing film, a physical therapy center, and a lounge designated for each team with individual theming. 

Administration simultaneously announced that VARSITY’s counterpart, the Non-Athlete Refectory for Pleasure & Study (NARPS), will take place in a newly constructed fourth building on “The Hill” next to Tyler House, Plimpton House, and Marsh House. Construction dates have not been announced, and details of amenities were not disclosed in the email. 

These decisions mark the official end of the college’s effort to bridge the student-athlete divide, an ongoing social issue that the college cites as exceedingly costly and time-consuming to repair. The two previous major college-facilitated efforts to bridge the divide, the committee to bridge the divide and the community conversation on the issue held at the Inn on Boltwood last spring, were only the beginning of the since-terminated effort. 

The administration shared that they created a program originally set for fall 2026 titled “Integrative Discussion, Gathering, and Flourishing (IDGAF),” which was planned to consist of approximately thirty plans targeted toward bridging the divide. This would have included an official IDGAF website where students and athletes would be required to leave weekly posts on 10 specific actions they took to bridge the divide, the formation of a committee dedicated to tracking the program’s progress via a 12-step algorithm, a once-a-week ban on communication between athletes outside of team-related mandatory events, and a fully-paid vacation focused on social bonding between the two groups.

“One of our primary plans was targeted at emphasizing the potential of a third space for our students. We planned to fund a trip to Walt Disney World for 10 students, including five selected students and five athletes,” an anonymous administrator wrote. 

However, by last October, the administration officially discarded the IDGAF program. The program became unfeasible due to rising budget constraints, as it was projected to consume $500,000 of the college’s budget. The intensity of the program also became too significant, as “the level of involvement it would have in students’ social life would have bordered on surveillance.”

After a month of planning, on Nov. 1, the administration officially decided that Val would become an athletic recreational center, and plans for the center were completed on March 4. “When one program closes, another construction project opens,” the administrator wrote.  

Administration expressed excitement over the teaching opportunity presented by the creation of these two separate spaces. “At Amherst, our students were never meant to be forced to walk over a metaphorical bridge created by us — only those of physical nature, like our new land bridges. These recreational spaces will invite students and athletes to relish in their individual space and demonstrate our full trust in their ability to forge their own paths toward one another,” the email explained.