Engineering School unites with college house

In the midst of dinner conversation, a professor, a dean and several students worked out a plan to create a partnership between the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Van Pelt College House last night. In the first segment of Van Pelt's annual "Dinner with Andre" program -- in which students meet informally with a prominent member of the University community -- Engineering Dean Gregory Farrington met with nine students and Van Pelt Faculty Master Al Filreis in a closed-off, seminar-size dining room located in the basement of Class of 1920 Commons. Named after a film entitled "My Dinner with Andre" which is set entirely during a long dinner conversation, the event is a "long-standing tradition" at the residence, according to Filreis, the English department undergraduate chairperson. Last night's discussion focused on the future of academics outside the classroom, specifically examining issues surrounding faculty interaction with students. And together, the group came up with a plan that would allow Engineering School faculty members to live in Van Pelt College House's guest suite with their families for a week at a time. Since the suite is currently occupied by visiting faculty, this newly developed program would not begin until next fall. And Farrington himself agreed to be the first to stay in the guest suite with his wife and 16-year-old son. Farrington said faculty understand students better after spending time outside the classroom environment. Filreis agreed, noting that this symbolic gesture could have "practical consequences. "We feel that an important part of undergraduate education will be housed, metaphorically and physically, in academic programs in residence," Filreis said. "We know that conversations of all intellectual sorts are going on avidly at Penn. We want to be part of that conversation." Besides the integration of residences and schools, the discussion also focused on technology and the extent to which faculty use the Internet as a means of communication. Since most of the students present were in the Engineering School, Farrington asked them how often they communicate with their professors via e-mail. No one said they consistently used e-mail with their Engineering professors. Engineering sophomore Ben Wu recalled one class in which he would e-mail his professor with questions and concerns, and would only receive short, curt responses -- as if the professor did not have time to communicate with him. Farrington said faculty members need time to change their old methods of teaching. "I think in the end the way we've taught has too often numbed us," he said. And Filreis said professors who take advantage of the Internet in addition to teaching class and holding office hours would be "living and breathing interaction with students." Another problem with the faculty's ability to interact with students results from the University's location in West Philadelphia, Farrington said. "What really frustrates me is that faculty live too far from the campus," Farrington said. "I'm not about to live in West Philadelphia but [living in the suburbs] is too far away for casual interaction." Farrington said he thinks the weekly living experiences at Van Pelt could be the perfect middle ground for those faculty members who do not want to permanently live on campus but want to increase their interactions with students. "The hard part is to get folks on the academic side in the schools to see that this kind of thing has real academic value," Filreis said. College freshman Jonathan Harvey said he never really understood the purpose of the faculty in residence. "I thought they're there to prevent major house parties where the place burns down," Harvey said. "The idea of showing up at 11 at night and talking about a problem I have or Shakespeare or calculus didn't really occur to me."