It’s September 2025. You are a student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst living in a recently completed housing complex off Massachusetts Avenue. It’s a rainy evening, but you’re starving. You don’t have the luxury of students living in Southwest Residential Area or Central Residential Area, who have dining commons just a short walk away. You wonder how you’ll be able to comfortably get a meal.

But wait! You just remembered that UMass has rolled out a new DoorDash-style service that delivers food from all your favorite dining locations. With glee, you think about the options you have — maybe the pancakes being served at Berkshire, or perhaps some ice cream from Worcester Dining Commons. The possibilities are endless, and it could all be experienced from the comfort of your room.

Unfortunately, what I just described is only a hypothetical. But it does not have to be. UMass can take its on-campus dining experience to a new level by creating a delivery service from dining areas to residential buildings on campus.

At first glance, the idea might sound outlandish and far-fetched, and there are definitely many problems to consider. But it’s not like UMass doesn’t already have the necessary infrastructure to institute this.

For example, during the 2020-21 academic year, UMass had students quarantine in locations around campus after being exposed to or testing positive for COVID-19. When quarantining, students had to order meals to their room using the UMass Dining Quarantine app. It was a relatively easy process; you selected any allergies or dietary restrictions, chose your meals and submitted. I don’t see how this couldn’t be reworked to be geared toward a general dining delivery service.

There are obvious concerns. The service may face an overwhelming amount of activity from students across campus that makes delivery slow, plodding and ineffective. Students could abuse the feature and order copious amounts of food, making it difficult for delivery drivers. These and other logistical problems are valid concerns, but ones I believe can be resolved.

The service would be limited to on-campus students and on-campus dining options that are open at the time. UMass could limit the delivery service to only certain parts of campus to begin with, like with the currently-under-construction Massachusetts Avenue housing that is farther from dining options than other residential areas. The University could also restrict it to certain times of the day, like after 9 p.m. or during very busy hours at the dining commons. If the University wanted to go further, it could limit students to only one delivered meal per day, which would be tracked by students signing into the app using their UCard.

I feel that the positives of this new service would outweigh the negatives. It would make the dining experience an overall more enjoyable one by reducing the high capacity that is so frequently found at the four dining commons, which is likely to get worse as the freshman class sizes continue to increase. It would also assist students with disabilities in getting meals in a more comfortable way. Additionally, delivery would create many new, good-paying jobs for students across campus, as positions to pack and deliver food would be needed.

This idea has many kinks that need to be worked out. However, I firmly believe that this is a concept that UMass could and should eventually implement. Delivery from dining areas would change the game of the dining experience. UMass may have nationally recognized dining, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved for the students it serves.

Luke Halpern can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @lukehalpern