Approximately 640 freshmen students and 60 faculty and administrative members dined together at the fifth annual Freshman High Table Dinner. Held Tuesday evening in a transformed Ralph S. O’Connor Recreation Center gymnasium, the event was sponsored by the Student Government Association (SGA) to promote unity among the Hopkins class of 2017.
“I thought it was really successful. I was really happy with the turnout,” Freshman Class President Jonathan Loewenberg said. “I think that from what I could see the students really liked it a lot. The faculty I talked to enjoyed it a great amount. The administration really liked it, I know I was sitting next to [University President Ronald J.] Daniels and he was impressed with how many students came. He loved the food, loved the atmosphere.”
After a brief ceremony including a welcoming address from Daniels and speeches from the freshmen class council, students socialized and conversed over a three-course meal catered by Bon Appétit.
Including various distinguished faculty members at the dinner tables, SGA hoped to also connect the freshman class with the Hopkins academic community beyond the classrooms and lecture halls.
“I happened to be seated next to [Professor] Erica Schoenberger, who is in a department that is completely opposite of what I’m [studying,]” freshman Chelsea Zou said. “It was really interesting to hear how she had gotten into academia.”
While some students and professors talked about academic matters, others spent time talking about their lives outside of school.
“We talked about TV shows like ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Game of Thrones,’” freshman Kevin Chen said regarding his conversation with Applied Math and Statistics department chair Daniel Naiman.
Preparation for High Table began in early October; in many ways, the event was the freshman class senators’ focus for the year.
“We’ve been talking about [High Table] pretty much since the second we got elected to SGA. This was our big event of the year. This was kind of what we were working towards. I’d say we really got down to the logistics of it after winter break,” Loewenberg said.
The event’s coordination was not limited to SGA, as many different on campus groups helped to make the evening a success.
“We had a small committee made up of staff from Housing & Dining, Residential Life, Student Life, the Recreation Center, and Bon Appétit that has been meeting since October 2013 planning the event,” Freshman Class Council Advisor Daniel Ferrara wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “The freshman class council and I also discussed planning for High Table at our weekly meetings.“
Loewenberg made clear Ferrara’s key role in organizing the event.
“I really have to give a huge shout out to our advisor, Dan Ferrara. He really helped plan a lot of the event and coordinated a lot of the stuff with Bon Appétit, who catered everything and set everything up. It wasn’t just us,” Loewenberg said.
A highlight of the night was the menu as students and faculty had various options like vegetarian or kosher entrées as well as a flourless chocolate cake for dessert.
“One of the best parts about preparing for High Table I’d have to say was the tasting,” Loewenberg said. “So all the food that you guys ate tonight, the entire freshman council, which consisted of me and the six senators, we tasted it all, we decided, and it was a pretty tough decision. Also a lot of the planning involved promoting the event, making sure students knew about it, knew what it was and then we also made decisions about a lot of the professors that are here sitting with the students.”
As the dinner finally came to a close, SGA members said that the Freshman High Table Dinner had strengthened relationships within the class of 2017 as well as among the student body as a whole.
“After everyone had left the dining room floor and tables had been cleared, I returned to do a final walkthrough and saw row after row of long empty tables (looking nothing like it had 30 minutes earlier). Except for one,” Ferrara wrote. “There was a table in the far aisle where a faculty member sat with three freshmen continuing a conversation that started over dinner. Just the four of them talking happily. I think this is what High Table is all about, building relationships that last beyond the dinner.”
