Mixing at mealtime

By allowing upperclassmen to take two free meals a week in residential college dining halls, the University has taken a laudable step in the direction of a more integrated campus community. To further this goal of bringing together Princeton's rich academic community, the University should also allow undergraduates to invite professors and graduate students to share free meals in the dining halls.

Meals have always seemed as a unique setting for discussion, debate and the exchange of ideas. Sitting down for a meal is particularly conducive to conversation and provides an environment substantially different from meeting in Frist Campus Center or other common spaces on campus. A number of our peer institutions, as well as several eating clubs, already allow students to invite their professors to a meal.

Such a policy allows for a closer relationship between undergraduates and graduate students, interactions between whom are largely restricted to precepts and labs. Graduate students offer a different perspective on the world of academia and great insights on advanced topics in their different fields of research. This is in part the idea behind the Resident Graduate Student (RGS) Program. While RGSs are chosen by the residential colleges, however, this program would allow students to invite any graduate student they wish to know better.

By allowing undergraduates a certain number of meals a week with which to invite professors, preceptors or graduate students, the University would foster the integration of the Princeton academic community. It would give undergraduates a convenient venue to forge relationships and learn from their instructors and peers. On a campus where the free exchange of ideas is a primary value, encouraging people to come together over meals would be a valuable contribution to academic life on campus.