Lenoir Dining Hall and Chase Dining Hall are often the settings for numerous college memories, including eating with newfound friends and studying for hours between meal times to get more out of a swipe. But these locations can also be the site for a candid discussion over a meal with your favorite professor.
Meals with Heels, which began as a Capstone project, aims to facilitate conversations between students and faculty while building relationships and increasing student academic success.
“It puts them in a setting that is out of the classroom in a casual environment and it allows them to get to know each other as fellow humans,” said Stacey Parker, the assistant director of academic initiatives and leadership development for UNC Housing. “They're really just connecting as human beings.”
Aimee McHale, a clinical assistant professor in the Public Health Leadership Program, has participated in the program twice. Although she was so overwhelmed by Top of Lenoir during her first visit that she kept solely to the salad bar, McHale believes each meal gave her more insight into her students’ lives.
“I have kids of my own who have been college students in the past, and I would want that for them,” McHale said. “I would want their faculty to take an interest in them, so I recognize that all of my students are somebody's kids. It helps to have somebody to talk to about whatever and to talk to outside of the academic environment.”
To participate in Meals with Heels, students may fill out a request form for a meal with one of their professors and then receive a dining voucher. Parker said around 98 percent of the time, students and professors talk about everything except class, such as family, why the professor chose to teach and the reasoning behind the student’s selected major. Meals with Heels is even expanding to incorporate dinners for larger numbers of students so dining with a professor can be less intimidating.
“We're approachable, and we eat and we do things outside of the classroom,” said Director of Undergraduate Production David Navalinsky. “We have interests as well and we aren't people that they can't touch or can't engage with. Getting us all together and getting us all to know each other a little more, it really helps out, and it makes a better community when there's less separation between everyone.”
McHale believes the experience is useful in crafting honest and comprehensive recommendations as well as in building relationships for students.
“It gave me a little bit of insight into what the student experience is at Carolina,” McHale said. “You see people when they walk into your class and then maybe you see them walking around campus, but you don't really get to know what the reality of their life is, and so if you see them in a different way, you see a different part of their life.”
