Professor-student and mentor-student interactions are at the heart of the Penn community, helping students develop their interests and careers, enhancing what goes on in the classroom, and fostering wellness across campus. This spring 2018, Penn’s Take Your Professor/Mentor to Lunch or Dinner & Host Your Class Programs were restructured to support these goals. As part of a renewed campus-wide focus on wellness at Penn, the Offices of the Provost, New Student Orientation & Academic Initiatives, and Business Services are expanding these key programs to help forge closer ties between our professors/mentors and our students.

Events can be initiated by students or professors/mentors, in groups or one-on-one, and both professors/mentors and students can participate multiple times. There are four kinds of events:

• Take Your Professor/Mentor to Lunch at the University Club: Penn students can invite current or past professors, as well as staff members who serve as mentors, to a free lunch at the University Club (3611 Walnut Street, 2nd floor of the Inn at Penn), Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Professors/mentors can also encourage their students to create a reservation at www.takeyourprof.org
• Take Your Professor/Mentor to Lunch or Dinner at Penn: Students and professors/mentors can eat a free lunch or dinner together in one of Penn’s Residential Dining facilities: 1920 Commons, Hill College House, Kings Court English College House, New College House, or Falk Kosher Dining Café in Hillel.
• Host Your Class at Penn: A professor/mentor can host a class (or group of mentees) for lunch or dinner, twice per term, at one of Penn’s Residential Dining facilities: 1920 Commons, Hill, Kings Court English College House, New College House, or Falk Kosher Dining Café in Hillel.
• Host Your Class at Home: A faculty member can host a class in their home and be reimbursed per student for the meal. This program is exclusive to current faculty teaching this semester.

More information–and submission forms–are available at: www.hostyourclass.org

We encourage everyone who teaches or serves as a professional mentor at Penn to take part in the program, whether full- or part-time faculty, emeritus faculty, teaching assistants, associated faculty, advisors, or research mentors. We also welcome suggestions for ways in which we can strengthen the program and support our shared goal to foster strong professor/mentor-student bonds.

For more information, contact:

Troy Majnerick, troy2@upenn.edu or David Fox, dfox@upenn.edu

Office of New Student Orientation & Academic Initiatives