EDITORIAL: Learning outside the classroom

More professors should take advantage of the President's Fund for Student-Faculty Interaction. Some faculty members throw parties for students out of the goodness of their hearts, paying for cookies or pizza and soda out of their own pockets. But the University has money available to cover the cost of such informal gatherings and schmooze sessions, through the President's Fund for Student-Faculty Interaction. Professors who want to treat their students are eligible for reimbursement of up to $6 per student. It sounds like a great idea: Set aside cash to encourage faculty members to get to know their students in a more relaxed atmosphere. Offer food at review sessions, for example, to boost attendance. Or simply generate a reason for the members of a seminar to meet one last time, to think about what they've learned from and shared with each other over the semester. Problem is, relatively few faculty members take advantage of this resource -- or so it seems. Many students, even if they enroll in seminar classes, rarely have the opportunity to get to know their instructors outside the classroom, unless students take the initiative during designated times like "Take a Professor to Lunch" week. Departments should urge their faculty members to take advantage of the President's Fund -- and perhaps, to avoid running the fund dry, departments that traditionally teach numerous undergraduate seminars could set up faculty-student interaction funds of their own.