AMHERST — An anonymous $50 million gift to Amherst College will name the main dining area inside the new Ford Student Center on campus as Betty’s Kitchen.
A few months after the college received a separate $50 million donation from William “Bill” Ford, a member of the Class of 1983, his wife, Molly Ford, and the Ford family, the college announced last Thursday that Betty’s Kitchen will recognize an anonymous donor’s grandmother and all of those who have fed, nurtured and inspired every member of the college community.
Betty’s Kitchen replaces Valentine Dining Hall, which opened in 1941 as both the college’s eating commons and dormitory rooms, as the primary place where meals will be served to students, faculty, staff and visitors. The site takes up 46,500 square feet of the 144,000-square-foot building designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, in collaboration with Sasaki.
“Betty’s sits at the heart of a transformational new building for Amherst, one built to strengthen our community for decades to come,” President Michael A. Elliott said in a statement.
The Ford Student Center, which opened on Monday, was constructed on the foundation of the former Merrill Science Center, which closed in 2018. In addition to Betty’s Kitchen, the building will be home to student organization spaces, resource centers, flexible gathering spaces, the Alumni Pub and more. It’s designed to connect the upper and lower campus with views of the mountains.
“I can think of no better way to honor what this space means to Amherst than through Betty’s example: the promise of a shared meal calling us together across interests and perspectives, generations and cultures, to the warmth and familiarity that tells us we’re home,” Elliott said.
Betty’s Kitchen will have 14 culinary stations, including all-day breakfast, sandwiches and pizza and, like other spaces in Ford Student Center, is designed to bring the college community closer together throughout the day.
The donor offered a statement on what it means to pay tribute to Betty.
“Betty offered us love and nourishment and encouraged us to venture out to explore a much larger world than the one into which we were born,” the donor said. “She believed the world should be a place of good food, good books, and good people gathered together, telling stories, asking questions, learning about each other and the world. She read voraciously, making her way through hundreds of books a year, inspiring a love of learning in her children and dozens of grandchildren. There was always room at her table, whether you were an old friend or a stranger.”
The two $50 million gifts are among the largest the college has received. In 2009, the college took in two anonymous cash gifts totaling $125 million, with the larger at $100 million, at the time believed to be the largest any liberal arts college had ever received.
In 2019, the estate of William McCall Vickery left $25 million to the college’s endowment, with all but $3 million of that going to the Emily Dickinson Museum.
