Lockhart Breakfast Project offers new social environment

Like many students, Ben Schmechel ’12 had to do much of his own cooking over the past few summers. But, for Schmechel, the activity became more than just a means of putting food on the table — it led him to a new social outlet on campus in his senior year.

After realizing how much he enjoyed the “basic autonomy” cooking provided, Schmechel said, he decided to create the Lockhart Breakfast Project, an initiative aimed at cultivating “a new kind of upperclassman community built around breakfast.” Members of the Lockhart Breakfast Project gathered in Lockhart kitchen for the first time in late October for a meal of frittata, steel cut oats, fruit smoothies and toast.

Since then, a group of upperclassmen spanning all available campus eating plans has been gathering in Lockhart’s kitchen at 8:30 each morning from Tuesday to Friday to share their morning meal.

The idea stemmed partly from Schmechel’s experiences as a junior member of Ivy Club living in 1901 Hall. Schmechel said that, at the time, he felt as if his social circle had shrunk to “weird proportions,” with two existing extremes in the social life of upperclass dorms: a hallway of singles in which no one knew each other, or a hallway of friends in which students know few people outside that group.

“In either respect, it seemed something wasn’t mixing,” Schmechel said. “Nothing about our living situations was doing anything to cultivate overlap of lives.”

While Schmechel is still a member of Ivy, he now has the option of staying close to home for breakfast. He said he hopes the Lockhart Breakfast Project is proving to be “an interesting alternative to the kind of social topography that exists now.”

The group currently has around 30 members, with about 10 to 12 students showing up on any given morning. Participants include members of Ivy, Tiger Inn, Tower Club, Cloister Inn, Terrace Club and 2 Dickinson, as well as independents and students on residential college meal plans. The project, Schmechel said, allows the students to mingle with each other in a place “open to a variety of groups but tied to your locality.”

The process of forming the group took off last spring when Schmechel submitted a proposal to the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students and was granted a weekly stipend for basic groceries and utensils. Dean of ODUS Thomas Dunne said ODUS agreed to provide administrative support to see if the project would create new opportunities to promote more social interaction among students living in upperclass housing.

“It’s a unique idea which, we hope, demonstrates that such student-initiated programs, even those coming from unexpected sources — in this case an individual senior with an interesting idea and the motivation to try it out — can create better, more collegial residential environments for students,” Dunne said.

Schmechel explained he first took an “ad-hoc approach” to advertising the group, beginning with posters in Lockhart entryways and emailing friends and listservs.

Sarah Bluher ’13, a member of 2D, said she first heard about the group in an email sent to the 2D listserv.

“It’s a way to see people I don’t necessarily intersect with,” she explained. Bluher now goes to breakfast at Lockhart twice a week with her roommate, who is an eating club member.

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While the group focuses on fostering interaction between upperclassmen, Schmechel said it is not limited to juniors and seniors and noted that a number of graduate students have contacted him about attending the breakfasts. The Lockhart kitchen remains open to all underclassmen, and though Schmechel noted that it has plenty of storage space for the group’s needs.