School of International Service Associate Dean Patrick Jackson ventured out of his office and into light conversation with students on Oct. 23 in the SIS Atrium over “Sushi and Tea.”
“’Sushi and Tea’ wasn’t my idea, actually- the menu came from the SIS undergraduate student government,” Jackson said. “But I like sushi and I like tea so I was only too happy to agree.”
The event, organized by the SIS undergraduate student council, allowed Jackson a new outlet to check up on students and get to know them better.
“Since I’m serving as associate dean at the moment, I don’t get a lot of classroom time with students, so these events are some of the main ways I can informally check in with students about how things are going,” Jackson said.
Jackson has office hours, but the “Sushi and Tea” event that comes around once a semester allows for more casual experience and chances to talk to students about education and current pop culture.
“Plus, sometimes we get into subjects I’m really passionate about, like baseball, the upcoming Doctor Who 50th anniversary episode, and the imminent debacle of the Ender’s Game movie.” Jackson said.
Jackson said he previously held office hours at the entrance of TDR since walking into the dean’s office can be intimidating. However, he now holds them every Tuesday in the atrium in an attempt to find a more informal way to interact with students.
“People sometimes think of education as this excessively formal relationship between a student and a professor, in which every interaction is serious and stressful,” he said. “This is silly.”
Jackson finds that when he removes the veneer of academia, he can begin to share experiences with students on a more basic plane of understanding.
“A good learning space starts off with people being human to one another, whether in formal/structured or informal ways,” he said. “Sharing stories is a basic human way of relating to one another, so why shouldn’t it be basic to the student/faculty interaction too?”
