From CDs to museum trips, profs try to end class on high note

At 11:50 yesterday morning, Communication professor Joseph Turow's Mass Media and Society class broke into applause.

Such claps - in this case, marking the last Mass Media and Society class of the semester - are often a way for students to show appreciation to their professors.

And when saying goodbye to their students, many professors feel obliged to end class with a similar sort of closing gesture.

Some, like Ruth Cowan of the History and Sociology of Science department, choose the easiest route to students' hearts: food.

Lunch for Cowan's last class is on the University, paid for by the President's Fund for Faculty-Student Interaction. This fund, run through the Office of Student Life, reimburses professors for one event per semester.

English professor Peter Stallybrass has likewise served tea and accompanied past students to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

"That last class is literally, 'That's it.' You're walking off in different directions," Stallybrass said.

Other professors have gotten a little more creative.

Romance Languages lecturer Dina Mahieddine-Cohen, for example, made French CDs and recipe books as parting gifts for her classes.

There is no requirement for professors to do anything different on their last day of classes, but some still try to make it a special day for their students

"It's very hard to escape that sense of disappointment, . [but] it's not like a play or a movie where something happens at the end," Stallybrass noted.

Anita Chikkatur, a Graduate School of Education doctoral student who taught Urban Education this semester, asks students to share what they've learned throughout the semester during the final class.

But Carol Colbeck -- an Education professor at Penn State University - pointed out that not all professors get nostalgic when their classes end.

Colleagues have teased her about bringing food to her classes as bribery for better evaluations, she said.

"For some, the idea of being openly sentimental would seem perhaps even inappropriate," Colbeck added.

Still, many students are all for end of semester celebrations, even when the free food begins to harken back to elementary school.

"I think it's really sweet of them. They don't have to do that, but it's nice they want to have some sort of fun way to end the semester," said Nursing sophomore Stephanie Watts, who will be eating in three separate classes this week.

For professors who partake in these types of last-day-celebrations, the enjoyment is mutual.

"Even when it's a little awkward with just 13 people in the room, it's still a lovely thing to do," Cowan said.

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