Equal Invitations

IF THERE'S any problem that's kept College administrators on their toes, it's probably the perennial issue of student-faculty contact. Of the many criticisms hurled at Harvard, the charge that undergraduates have little access to the University's famed faculty is perhaps the one that rings truest. For while professors generally keep office hours and the like, inspiring some more spontaneous interaction between the school's young, untutored minds and its tutors has been a near impossible challenge.

So we applaud the College's recent decision to encourage more student-faculty interaction by offering meal tickets to each undergraduate--allowing the professor to join the student in question for a meal in a dining hall at no charge. Administrators reason, quite plausibly, that one-on-one contact is most effective when student-initiated, so that it pays to do everything possible to encourage students to approach the faculty. Free meal passes remove some of the awkwardness for a student wishing to invite a professor to a meal and, perhaps more importantly, may give some students the idea actually to approach a faculty member.

And when you think about it, the pedagogical possibilities are nothing short of inspiring. A brief conversation after class might stretch to a lengthy interchange ("Professor, do you mind if we continue this over a spot of broccoli-cheese pasta?") A meeting of minds in the wide open spaces of the Freshman Union.

We like the idea so much, in fact, that we would like to suggest two desirable corollaries to this new policy. First, distribute to all faculty--equally starved for contact with those on the other side of the desk--the same meal coupons, so that they can initiate meals in the dining halls; why should they have to wait for an invitation from students? But, better yet, why not go a step further and distribute coupons for faculty to take students to the Faculty Club? If shared meals in the College dining halls can produce a lively intellectual exchange, who can say what a discussion in the dignified Faculty Club could inspire.