Program brings interaction between students, faculty

Ian Mayer Arizona Daily Wildcat Celia Sepulveda, community programs coordinator, looks over the annual publication, Extending the Boundaries of Learning in her Old Main office. The work provides information about student issues and concerns to the campus community.

Coordinated by the University of Arizona's Dean of Students Office, the program funds informal meetings between faculty members and their students.

"The purpose is to get students to feel more connected to campus by feeling more connected to the faculty," said Celia Sepulveda, community programs coordinator. "They (the students) feel so much more comfortable walking into a professor's office after seeing the faculty member wearing shorts and playing volleyball."

The 10-year-old program offers professors the opportunity to reach out to students. Recent demand created the need for a selection process, with activities involving freshmen and new transfer students receiving highest priority.

The Dean of Students Office pays up to $7 per participant for approved activities, which is expected to cover a portion of the cost. The Memorial Student Union also contributes funds to the program.

Faculty members requested funding for a range of activities that vary in scope, from one-on-one lunches to class-wide dinner parties.

During the 1995-1996 school year, the Dean of Students Office paid $12,800 to support activities for 1,830 students. Last year, the numbers increased to 5,738 students and $14,300 in funding. About 50 percent of the participants were freshmen or transfer students.

The number of departments participating in the program increased from 24 to 45 during the same time period.

Faculty members said they benefit from the program as much as the students.

Holly Smith, dean of social and behavioral sciences, requested grant money from the program to take students in her fall freshmen seminar to lunch in groups of three.

"It's a nice opportunity that gives me a better picture of freshmen - the problems they are having and facing," Smith said.

Jeff Reid, a UA an-thropology professor, also applies for grant money to take his students out to lunch in small groups.

"I get to find out a lot more about what undergraduate students are thinking and doing," Reid said.

The interaction program gives students the chance to know a teacher who may have several hundred students.

Maria Maust, an ecology and evolution-ary biology freshman, went to a luncheon with a faculty member in her major.

"The campus is so big," Maust said. "It is helpful to learn about the people and the opportunities involved in your major.

"It is good to meet faculty and professors in the major," Maust added. "I would recommend it (the program) to my friends."

Anthony C. Braza can be reached via e-mail at Anthony.C.Braza@wildcat.arizona.edu.