Reporter Volume 25, No.17 February 17, 1994

By CHRISTIAN MILLER
Reporter Contributor

"You're all here in a research universityQbut what are the advantages
of being here?"
	Across the dinner table, the students listened to Professor
Peter Nickerson, dining with them, along with other UB faculty, last
week in their residence hall cafeteria.
	"I'll tell youQwe're all scholars; all of us. The faculty are
only different in that they're just a little more advanced in their
fields. We're all still learning," Nickerson said.
	"You may think your professors don't want to see you, but
that's not trueQnot for the majority of them. Faculty want to meet
you, and will work for you, as 'brokers' in their networks, putting
you in touch with people who share your interests and goals.
	"But you've got to take the initiative to get to know
someone."
	Learning, both in and out of the classroom, in all its varied
permutations, is the passion of Peter Nickerson, director of the
medical school's Pathology Graduate Program and chair of the Faculty
Senate. Nickerson is deeply concerned about the role of the student in
the modern university.
	He has been prime organizer and facilitator of the dinner and
dialogue program.
	Nickerson and several colleagues were on hand to dine with
students in the Governors residence hall andQas they have been several
times since last semesterQto participate in FSA and Residential Life's
jointly-sponsored "Governors Symposium." The new venture harks back to
Plato's days when student/teacher interaction was more social,
informal, dialogue-centered, based primarily upon the free exchange of
ideas.
	Jennifer DeCory, an electrical engineering major, was seated
with Robert Noble, a professor of Biochemistry and Medicine. "It's a
nice change to get to know professors on a personal level," DeCory
observed. "The classroom tends to put them on a pedestal. You forget
that they're human and have opinions."
	Noble laughed. "It's uncomfortable to realize that people
attribute somewhat frightening attributes to you. As you get older,
students become more hesitant in approaching you. The reticence grows
with time. But you don't feel any different than you did when you were
younger."
	Nearby, several law students and an Occupational Therapy
professor were busy deflating each other's egos. "In law school, we
make fun of our friends who are majoring in OT," said Steve Lee. Kent
Tigges, associate professor of Occupational Therapy, responded with a
laundry list of lawyer stereotypes.
	At the end of the evening, TiggesQa first-time Symposium
participantQspoke highly of his new lawyer friends.
	"I had a very nice time," he said. "It's nice to have a chance
to have a casual relationship with studentsQto be on their own turf
where they're already relaxed and it's up to me to relax.
	"I don't think you can preach unless you practice," Tigges
continued. "And I don't think you can teach unless you know your
students. You have to know their concerns, their issues, their
interests....And you just don't get that in a classroom."
	The frequent laughter and broadening flashes of personal
insight may be what Thomas Wolfe meant when he wrote in 1929 of
"minute-winning moments that make new magic of a dusty world."
	For instance, Professor of Microbiology Bernice Noble's
conversation with an engineering student revealed that the
architectural plans for the young woman's high school were drafted by
Noble's son. "Where else would weQcoming from our diverse backgrounds
of engineering and microbiologyQhave had the opportunity to have that
conversation?" mused Noble.
	Or the numerous times that professors have become
reacquaintedQor sometimes initially acquaintedQwith former, present,
and future students.
	Nickerson, long mindful of the need for this kind of forum,
explains the genesis of the Symposium. "Well, 'historically,' I'm one
of two faculty reps to the Faculty-Student Association," he said. "I
knew that there needed to be more interaction between students and
faculty on a personal level, and happened to be at the right place at
the right time. I called the proposal 'Adopt a Dormitory,' to indicate
ownership by the faculty. If we're fortunate, we can enlarge it to the
entire university."
	The Symposium is actually part of a long tradition of
involving faculty and residence hall students at UB.
	The Ellicott Complex was designed to function as a Living
Learning Center, modeled after the collegiate systems of Cambridge,
Oxford, or Harvard, where "masters" were to live-in with students,
according to Rick Schoellkopf, associate director of Residential Life.
	Each of the six quads in Ellicott once housed special-interest
"colleges," with such diverse names as Math-Sciences, Rachel Carson,
and Black Mountain II. The program, initiated in the fecundity of the
Rockefeller years, would eventually wither due to duplication of
courses, factionalism, and lack of funding. Nickerson remembers
popular sentiment for this noble yet failed experiment as "exciting
and filled with tremendous promise."
	Throughout the 1980s and early '90s, programs like "FASTalks"
and "Sunset Cafe" brought professors in to socialize with students.
	Nickerson's future Symposium plans include visits to the
all-freshman residence halls, providing the opportunity for professors
to aid in first-year students' transition and adaptation to the
university. Participating students and faculty will also accompany
each other to the Charlene Hunter-Gault Distinguished Speakers Series
lecture on April 20.
	Nickerson stresses that the program is, by its very nature,
interdisciplinary. Professors who have participated in the program
have come from the Medical School, Anthropology, Psychology, and
Nutrition.
	Faculty who are interested in the Symposium or wish to
supplement their face-to-face contact with students are encouraged to
contact Nickerson to participate in an upcoming Symposium. Faculty
should also be aware of the possibility of their being drafted:
Symposium organizers recently sent a letter to Governors residents
inviting them to nominate favorite professors with whom they would
most like to share an enjoyable and intimate dinner.