FSEC and SA address student-professor divide

In an effort to promote student-faculty integration, Student Association officials and the Faculty Senate Executive Committee met Wednesday to discuss future endeavors for bringing faculty and students closer together.

With 400-plus seating in lecture halls and sparse office hours from professors and teaching assistants, freshman retention has been dwindling in recent years. And as the divide seems to be widening, SA officials said they feel new ideas and programs can bridge the gap between students and staff.

"We entertain with clubs and events, but we advocate a great deal more," said SA President Dela Yador. "And we hope to include the integration of faculty and students to that list."

With a $2.8 million budget supporting it, SA sponsors events like the Distinguished Speakers series, nearly 120 clubs, and the online teacher evaluation database. SA officials have said that with this year's $500,000 budget hike in effect, the student government plans to grow more ambitious with its undertakings.

In conjunction with University Residence Halls and Apartments, Yador will soon negotiate plans to bring faculty to residence halls - specifically the dining halls.

"To bring a well needed one-on-one staff situation for students, plans for student-faculty dinners and ice cream socials have been discussed," Yador said.

Student-faculty dinners, which officials said were successful in the Governors complex last year, allow students to sit at the same table with their professors in a more approachable setting than the lecture hall or staff office.

"Students always have an amorphous relationship when professors don't know their names," said Debra Street, an assistant professor in the sociology department and member of the Faculty Senate.

The dinners and ice cream socials are a means to foster a better relationship between students and faculty, but that effort has to go in both directions in order to succeed. Dinners can be hosted, but they don't do any good if students don't participate.

"It's a matter of 'if you build it, they will come,'" Street said.

Street said one way to encourage student participation is to ask them which professors they'd like to see at these dinners.

"Maybe asking students to invite their favorite choice professors would be a positive course of action," Street said. "It has more meaning for a student if their professors are there because of them. And personally for me, being invited is a lot more flattering than a general flyer. I'm more inclined to go that way."

"It is important for students to see faculty in a different light outside of the classroom, and we hope our efforts will advocate that," said Yador.