Departments
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Week of 29 October 1999 |
Vol. III, No. 12 |
Feature
Article
Making a connection
Profs and students loosen up during evening Reflections
By David J. Craig
Raj Ashar had entertained guests for dinner before this month, but never a faculty member. That changed when Sheila Smith, a CAS assistant professor of international relations, took him up on his invitation to dine at the Performing Arts House October 2. Ashar (CAS'02), a computer science major, was thrilled, he says, because schedule constraints had kept him from taking a course in world politics. He got a healthy dose of political talk that night, in addition to learning that he and Smith share the same favorite breakfast cereal -- Quaker oatmeal.
Making small talk with Smith, however, wasn't the most exciting part of his evening. After dinner, he took part in a spirited hour-long discussion with Smith and a handful of other students about her recent trips to Okinawa, Japan, to study relations between United States Marines stationed there and local citizens.
"The whole discussion afterwards was a lot more exploratory and open-ended than in a classroom," Ashar says. "And it was really friendly and less demanding than being in class. Kids would walk by and see the cookies inside the door, and she told them, 'C'mon in, sit down with us.'
"And it was just really cool talking to a professor all night," he continues. "She filled me in on what's going on in Japan and really opened my eyes to a lot of things. I never thought about how the American media talks mostly about how events over there affect us politically or economically."
The evening was arranged as part of a new program called Tuesday Night Reflections, which gets professors on students' turf to dine, tour a residence hall, and lead a discussion on a topic they teach.
A planning committee comprising representatives from the Office of the Dean of Students, the Office of Residence Life, and the Student Activities Office has been sending letters to professors inviting them to participate. When a professor indicates his or her interest, a student member of one of the resident hall associations contacts the professor, arranges the meeting, and plays host for an evening. Dinner is supposed to break down barriers; the after-dinner discussion is decidedly informal.
The dozen students who wandered into the lounge at the Performing Arts House after dinner on October 2 heard firsthand stories about Smith's trip to Japan, where she spent most of 1998 interviewing Marines and civilians, she says, to "put a human face on U.S. military deployment." Students viewed a slide show, heard descriptions of the street protests that take place regularly in Okinawa -- some of which are aimed at U.S. military -- and anecdotes about how the soldiers and the Japanese learn to live with one another.
"It was a less tense environment than in a classroom, where students are expected to be prepared and to have done reading," says Smith. "The conversation didn't presume any kind of hard-and-fast knowledge, and students shared their thoughts on all sorts of things. For instance, if they had been overseas, they gave their perspectives on what they'd seen."
Leila Saad, assistant dean for student support programs, says professors have been "exceedingly welcoming to the idea" of participating in the program, and the first round attracted about 20 students to each session. That's a perfect number, she says, because the idea is to keep the engagements small and intimate.
"What's unique about this is we're helping make the faculty into real people for the students," she says. "Then maybe they'll be prompted to go and talk to a professor during office hours."
Five faculty members visited residence halls October 2, a second round of Reflections took place October 25, and another is scheduled for Tuesday, November 2. The program will continue for the entire school year, Saad says.
Ted de Winter, an ENG associate professor of manufacturing engineering, who visited Myles Standish Hall to discuss superconductivity, says that professors should make a conscious attempt to be approachable to students. He lunches with students at Myles Standish once a week.
"I think students are generally reluctant to come to faculty for career and life advice," he says. "When they do come to my office, I make it clear that I'm not doing them a favor. They're paying enough for it, and I tell them that. When we visit students, I think it gives them some confidence to develop that kind of one-on-one dialogue."
Bridgett Basile (CAS'02), who hosted de Winter, says he earned his money that night.
"I don't know anything about superconductivity, but it was nice because he brought it down to a level where a layperson could understand it," she says. "There were a lot of engineers there, and I think there were some others who just were interested in broadening their horizons. He was really entertaining, and you could sit back and listen just for the sake of listening."
For a schedule of the Tuesday Night Reflections on November 2, see the Calendar on page 8.