O-Week: Breaking bread with college associates

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– August 21, 2009Posted in: Current News

Breaking bread with college associates
New students get to know more of the Rice community

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News staff

New students had an opportunity Wednesday to get off campus and dine with their college associates — faculty, staff and Rice community members who work with residential colleges to provide academic expertise and real-world support for the students.

College associates host dinners for O-week groups in their homes to get to know the new students and help familiarize them with life outside of the Rice campus. Some associates order pizza or have the dinner catered, but most team up with other college associates to provide some potluck-style home cooking.

Students might be initially shy to talk with the associates, but, like butter, those fears soon melt away. As the group breaks bread, the students and associates spring into conversation.

JEFF FITLOW
Over
a pot of pasta, students get to know their faculty associate, Diana
Strassmann, professor in the practice in humanities, right, and her
husband, Jeff Smisek.
 
JESSICA STARK

After
dinner, Jeff Fleischer, assistant professor of anthropology, right,
talks with students about some nitty-gritty details of college, such as
buying books, preparing for that first class and how he structures his
courses.

 
ANNA MERIANO
After a helping or two of pizza, students make a splash in their associate’s pool. 
JESSICA STARK
The
O-week group that gathered in the home of Pamelyn Shefman, associate
director of the student center, had some extra special guests, front
row: 2-year-old Quinn Shefman and 4-year-old Max Fleischer.
JEFF FITLOW
The
group of students that dined with Joan Strassmann, the Harry C. and
Olga K. Wiess Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, center,
also had a special guest: a pet snake. The students had the chance to
handle the reptile, though not all volunteered for the opportunity.

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