David M. Howard, Jr., Ph.D.

ASK A PROFESSOR TO LUNCH

I am completing my third year of teaching at Trinity, and it has been a wonderful experience for me. Prior to coming here, I had taught for eight years at a sister institution, and in three other seminaries as a visiting professor.

Trinity is widely admired -- even envied! -- around the country and around the world. My experience since I have been here confirms what I had heard as an outsider previously: it attracts many world-class faculty members, as well as excellent students, and it offers high-quality programs.

Like all institutions, Trinity has its problems (although it has less than many places I know of). One of Trinity's problems is that of faculty-student relations. I have heard it said many times that students wish they could be closer to faculty members, but that faculty members are too busy or uninterested to develop such relationships.

One price that is paid when one comes to a place where there are so many world-class people is that access to them may indeed be limited. Many of Trinity's faculty are so bright and spiritually gifted that their ministries are in great demand, and they extend far beyond the borders of the campus, through their writing, teaching, preaching, consulting, and so on. Much benefit accrues to Trinity students from these, however, in the wisdom and knowledge that is gained, and that is passed along to them in various ways.

However, Trinity students can rightly feel cheated if the faculty is so busy with other things that the only avenue to their professors is through their classes. Wisdom and knowledge can be imparted in many ways, and the classroom is only one means of that. Interpersonal contact is another -- an important and effective way.

One way that, institutionally, Trinity addresses this problem is via the advisor-advisee group. Among the most meaningful relationships I have developed with students, perhaps the largest portion of them has come through this important vehicle. I know something of what is happening in their lives, and they know about mine, and we care about and pray for each other. We discuss important issues, and we discuss trivial issues, as well. If you are a student who is (or can be) on campus for these, and you do not take advantage of them, then shame on you. Or (to put the shoe on the other foot), if you are a professor who does not take this vehicle seriously, then shame on you, too.

I would like to propose another way in which students and faculty can develop closer relationships. It might be called the "Ask-A-Professor-To-Lunch" program. It is very simple, and it involves just what is sounds like: students taking the initiative to ask their professors to lunch some time.

This could take many different forms. The easiest would be to make a date to have lunch together at the White Horse Inn. Everyone has to eat lunch, so why not professors and students doing this together occasionally, rather than each group being segregated (in faculty lounge and "student" dining room)?

Another form would be for student and professor to make a date off campus, at a nearby restaurant. This would afford more privacy and a more leisurely meal.

Another form would be for the student to invite the professor home for lunch. This would work best for on-campus students. (A student did this once for me, and I had a delightful time getting to know him and his wife better.)

Please notice that I am calling this the "ASK-A-Professor-To-Lunch" program, not the "TREAT-A-Professor-To-Lunch" program. This would be strictly an "each-pays-for-their-own" program (except where a student asks the professor into the home, in which case paying a "cover charge" would not be correct social form).

It might be asked why professors don't simply mix naturally more often in the White Horse Inn, why we need an "Ask-A-Professor-To-Lunch" program. It might be answered that there is an arrogant professor here or there who thinks s/he is above such mixing. However, from what I know of Trinity's faculty, I don't think this is the case. I think it is more the product of other factors. Sometimes, professors do need time with their colleagues over lunch. But, this is not necessary for every meal on campus. Sometimes, we simply don't think of extending ourselves by lunching in the White Horse Inn, and in these cases, the fault is ours. Sometimes, however, the structural limitations of student-faculty roles make it awkward for both student and faculty when a faculty member intrudes upon a student lunch. Or, for some of us faculty, we may be somewhat shy by nature, and our dispositions shrink from making such overtures in any setting, not just student-faculty settings.

I do not know of any faculty member at TEDS, however, who would not welcome a student's taking the initiative and asking him or her to lunch in a manner I have described here. If the person is busy, then that's what appointment calendars are for; maybe the lunch will have to be next month, and not tomorrow. Nevertheless, try it; as Humphrey Bogart said to Claude Rains at the end of "Casablanca," it could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

(This article originally appeared in The Scribe [Trinity student newspaper] (June 2, 1993): 3.)