It had always been important for Michael Caruso to get to know his professors on a deeper level than what a classroom provided. He was accustomed to Columbus State Community College’s quaint Delaware campus — where bumping into professors and chatting with them in the hallways was a daily occurrence.

So when Caruso transferred to Ohio State, he was worried he’d be just another student in a lecture hall.

“Having a one-to-one kind of relationship with professors has always been important to me,” said Caruso, who graduated with a degree in strategic communication in December 2021. “At the end of the day, we’re all human, and we have personal lives. It’s cool to be able to get to know them and have a more personal connection.”

Shortly after arriving, Caruso learned about the Take Your Professor to Lunch program. For Caruso, it was a perfect way to forge a stronger connection with a lecturer he’d come to admire: Elizabeth Hewitt, a professor in the Department of English.

As they sat down for lunch, they chatted about their backgrounds, interests and aspirations. Caruso talked about how close he is with his family, how his uncles played football for Ohio State and how his time at Columbus State fostered a love for marketing and public speaking. He learned a little more about Hewitt’s background and how she came to become a professor. After learning more about each other, Caruso was inspired to add a minor in professional writing.

“Getting to know professors was really important to me, and I’m fortunate I was able to have this program to be able to do that at a campus as large as Ohio State’s,” Caruso said. “I’m forever grateful for the opportunities I’ve had to connect with so many amazing professors here.”

Sydney Trem

Since Sydney Trem, a junior studying history, participates in the Integrated Social Studies Program in the Department of History, she registered for Professor Kendra McSweeney’s “Our Global Environment” geography course last fall semester.

It didn’t take long for Trem to fall in love with the course because of how engaging and interesting McSweeney kept the lectures. Trem and two of her friends in the class could be found talking with McSweeney after lectures and in office hours, but they were curious to learn more about her beyond what’s often discussed in those settings.

The Take Your Professor to Lunch Program offered the perfect opportunity for all three students to grab a bite with her. Trem recalls each student sharing more about their classes, campus jobs, hometowns and high school experience during the lunch with McSweeney.

“It was really nice because we could talk more about our personal lives and get to know each other,” Trem said. “There was always something to talk about.”

Even though Trem’s career plans don’t involve geography, McSweeney connected her with faculty in the Department of History, sparking an idea for a research project about the Italian mafia’s influence in Trem’s hometown of Cleveland.

“She’s very passionate about undergraduate research opportunities,” Trem said. “She wants students to succeed and take advantage of all of the opportunities that Ohio State has.”

Since sitting down with McSweeney, Trem has already recommended the Take Your Professor to Lunch program to students she supervises as a resident advisor. She’s also thought about who she might ask to participate in the program next.

“This made me realize that most professors want to get to know their students, so it’s not really as scary as it may seem,” she said.

Elizabeth Hewitt

But with programs like Take Your Professor to Lunch, everything seems to shrink, simplify and become a little bit more manageable.

“Students sometimes don’t have a lot of close encounters with faculty,” Hewitt said. “Part of the beauty of the university experience is just getting to talk with people about ideas, education, scholarship and life. Thinking back to my own college life, one of the things I remember most was close interactions with my professors. I think that’s really important, and it’s part of the reason why I became a professor.”

Lecture halls and classrooms are filled with dozens of students — all there to learn. It can sometimes be difficult for instructors to differentiate students from one another. And in a new age of remote learning — where students are made up of rows of boxes on a screen — that mindset becomes harder to overcome.

“The idea of individualizing them is so important,” Hewitt said. “I have so many great students. But you realize when you talk to them that they’ve got so much else going on. There’s a kind of myopia that faculty have where we think students are really only in our class, when we know that’s not the case. When you talk to students one-on-one and they tell you about all the other things going on in their lives, you really are brought front and center.”

Hewitt has participated in the Take Your Professor to Lunch program twice — once with communication major Michael Caruso and another time with English major Emily Winter. Both have since graduated, but for Hewitt, the experience has lingered. Just recently, one of her students sent her a Panera gift card as a token of thanks last semester. Hewitt, inspired by her previous lunch encounters, asked that student to grab lunch with her.

“It’s so rewarding to get to speak with a student just one-on-one and learn about them,” Hewitt said. “It’s such a great program.”

Cheavens, a professor of psychology, remembers the first time a student asked her to participate in the program: “I was really flattered. It’s a nice gesture on the student’s part. I was excited to get to know them outside of the classroom, to get to know them better.”

From that point on, it seemed every semester a student in her “Positive Psychology” class would hear about the lunch program, invite Cheavens and email the entire class to see if anyone else wanted to join. Usually, Cheavens would end up meeting a group of students at the dining hall.

“Having a conversation with somebody for a whole meal, it’s like a first date in some ways, so having other people there can make the whole experience less intimidating and make people feel more at ease,” Cheavens said.

The students are often curious about how she became a clinical psychologist, and she’ll ask what they plan to pursue after college. However, Cheavens most loves to hear about the students’ experiences in the psychology major and where the Department of Psychology can improve. When students share their favorite courses, that can inspire others in the group to consider it, or another course by the same instructor, for future semesters.

Cheavens has also met with students one on one through the Take Your Professor to Lunch Program, which has led to better addressing topics such as mental health issues or getting specific advice about attending graduate school.

The program’s influence on Cheavens extended to such a level that she added a similar spin to some of her office hours before the COVID-19 pandemic. With Chat & Chew, Cheavens would eat lunch in the Union cafeteria and students could join her. She wanted to give students this informal option of conversing because it may be less intimidating than speaking in her office. Once safety precautions allow, she plans to restart Chat & Chew.

“We’re interested in working with bright and interested and curious young adults and so it’s a really nice opportunity to get to see inside the lives of students from a different lens,” Cheavens said.