Communitas

Mourning the end of summer, I sat in an information session at Williams College before the beginning of my senior year in high school. The admissions officers emphasized the strong sense of community at Williams, saying that it was typical of professors to invite students to their houses for lunch and dinner. It was implied that if a student actually took the initiative to invite a professor to a meal, rejections would be few and far in between.

Although I am certainly content with my decision to attend Harvard, I miss the student-faculty interaction that I had in high school and would be easier to come by at a place like Williams.

Harvard makes a meager attempt to foster student-faculty relationships outside of the lecture hall. In early April, for instance, Harvard sponsored a first-year-Faculty dinner in Annenberg. Excited first-years asked their favorite teaching fellows and professors to join them for a bit of the Berg’s famous fare. Inevitably, a few were turned down, but the dining hall still reached fire-hazard capacity. It was a joy to see Annenberg full of so many young and old smiling faces. Similar student-faculty dinners are held on a biannual basis in the houses.

As I salivated over my chicken parm and chatted it up with my English professor, I sadly realized how unnatural and infrequent this type of interaction is at Harvard. For many of us, the arranged dinner will probably be the only experience of this nature for the entire first year. I understand that many students are not interested in more informal interaction with their professors. Nonetheless, for those who seek more time with the faculty, Harvard may be a bit frustrating.

In high school, casual conversation with faculty members was an integral, and indeed unavoidable, part of my experience. Every teacher has a desk in a room devoted entirely to his or her department. As a result, when teachers are not explaining the fundamental theorem of calculus or The Wasteland, they go to desks in their respective department “resource centers.” In these centers, students can extend a discussion that occurred in class, or informally chat about the Yankees or the relative merit of the latest Pokémon movie. This daytime accessibility, combined with heavy extracurricular involvement, enables frequent student-faculty interaction. Harvard could never implement a comparable system, but it could certainly do more than the status quo.

Enthusiasm for interacting with the student body should be a requirement for tenure. Two hours of office hours is not terribly demanding, yet some professors make it seem like the bane of their existence. Harvard’s dining program allows students to take faculty members into the dining hall at no expense. I rarely, however, see anyone capitalizing upon this option. Why? The Harvard environment does not encourage such interaction. Professors should make a statement during shopping period that they are willing to meet with students outside of the classroom and office hours. In addition, it would be nice to see a little more faculty involvement in student activities. When a professor shows little interest in his students, a student will be more inclined to lose interest in the course.

Harvard continues its tradition as a leading institution of higher education because of its human resources. Though Harvard will never be able to establish the close-knit community of a small liberal arts college like Williams, it can make faculty openness to student interaction a higher priority. Biannual arranged dinners should not be the climax of student-faculty interaction for those who would appreciate more.