Profs Dispense Treats and Tips

Building good student-faculty relationships is just easier when there are Finale desserts to sweeten the deal. Eager Harvard freshmen attending a session on “Making the Most of Office Hours” yesterday grabbed treats along with tips on how to approach professors from a distinguished faculty panel, including the former dean of the College, Leverett Professor of Mathematics Benedict H. Gross ’71.

For those in search of the secret for how to manage the initial one-on-one encounter with a professor, the main advice of the evening seemed to be simply to show up.

The four faculty members present said that, contrary to popular belief, professors are genuinely interested in getting to know their students. Moderator Aaron D. Chadbourne ’06, a proctor in Hollis Hall and a student at the Law and Business Schools, said he hoped the event would help break down Harvard’s “culture of mutual avoidance.”

Seated casually on sofas in the Barker Center, professors shared comical anecdotes about students who came to office hours, recalling one pupil whom Professor of the Practice of Molecular and Cellular Biology Robert A. Lue nicknamed “The Ocean” for his relentless stream of questions.

300th Anniversary University Professor Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, hastened to add that students don’t need to come in with a specific question or share some fascinating talent. “Just normal people are fun, too,” she said.

Professors also said that the semiannual faculty dinners are often too formal and stilted to provide the best kind of interaction between students and professors, and encouraged students to think more creatively.

“I don’t like faculty dinners,” Thomas F. Kelly, the Knafel professor of music, said. “You’d do better to invite a faculty member to lunch or dinner. You have a better chance to talk to a faculty member one on one.”

Students at the panel reacted positively, praising the professors and expressing a desire to give office hours a try.

“You can see how it actually might be when you talk to them,” Edmund V. G. Soriano ’11 said. He called the panel “encouraging” and said that he was now more inspired to attend office hours.

Kelly explained it from an academic’s point of view.

“We’re all really shy,” he admitted, pushing students to take the initiative and approach their professors.

“If you do,” he said, “you’ll be very, very glad.”