By Anthony Navarrete, Staff Writer
A well kept secret on campus allows students to mingle with faculty and staff over tasty treats.
Every second Tuesday of the month, the staff of Student Support Services has continued the tradition of Tasty Tuesday to help familiarize the students with the staff.
Some of snacks that have been featured in the past include watermelon, brownies, pies, and most recently, monkey bread.
Testing services and early intervention coordinator Debbie Haslam said that student support services is there to help students out who are struggling with their grades. She said the intent of Tasty Tuesday was to get students comfortable with the staff so that students would be more likely to seek out help before serious problems arose.
“We felt it was really important for them to get to know us before they got that, ‘Hey, can you come talk to us about your class?’ If they know us on a personal, more friendly level before that hits, we felt that would be a better way to develop relationships.”
Haslam said she is starting to see an increase in student traffic for Tasty Tuesday and that she has heard students get excited about the upcoming Tasty Tuesday and what food will be there.
Haslam said that not only students come to event but faculty members as well.
“There are a couple that kind of understand the purpose of it and they’ll come in as well so they can interact with the students,” she said.
Haslam said that the department has allocated a small budget for Tasty Tuesday.
Sophomore Murphy Obershaw said that she started going to Tasty Tuesday in her first semester at Newman and has gotten to know the staff better.
Obershaw said that depending what time of year it is, there will be more students flowing in.
“Sometimes there’s a lot of people who go. And sometimes there’s a couple people who go. So far this year since there’s only been one or two, word hasn’t really spread.”
Obershaw said that she has encouraged friends to go to the event themselves so they can get food and get to know the staff.
“I think some people might be a little scared to go in and just get food, but the point of Tasty Tuesday is, ‘Hi, we’re student support services, we’re not scary people. We’re real people and here take some food too,’” she said.
Obershaw said that she used to be in the student support services office a lot to talk to a friend and apologized to Haslam if she was disrupting. But said that Haslam said that she’s glad that Obershaw felt comfortable being in the office in case she ever needs help in the future.
Haslam said that a new event called Meet Up and Eat Up, which was held on Oct. 12, was a collaboration with other staff and faculty members. Students were able to meet with the faculty and staff over hot dogs, chili, and many side dishes and deserts.
Similar to Tasty Tuesday, the purpose was to get students to know staff members
The next Tasty Tuesday is Nov. 13.
