The Student Faculty and Staff Dinner took place on November 19, 2015 in the Campus Center Event Room. The primary objective of the dinner is to honor exceptional professors at Stockton. This event is open to the entire student body and it is through the students that the dinner is made possible. Students hand pick the professor they wish to invite: each student is allotted one ticket for themselves and another for a faculty or staff member.

I heard about the dinner a few days before the event and I immediately drew a survey of professors I wanted to invite in my mind. Although I am only a freshman, I found myself having great difficulty choosing which professor I would give my second ticket. For this reason, I enlisted some help from some friends who share similar schedules and professors. In the end, we ended up inviting about seven professors but three were unable to attend. My guest was my chemistry lab professor, Dr. Walters. I thought he was really deserving of the honor because of how diligent and helpful he is during lab. He graduated from Stockton for undergrad and this was his first year teaching at the university.

The really cool thing about the dinner is that it gives students the opportunity to show their appreciation to faculty and staff members who have helped them throughout their career at Stockton. A lot can be said about the quality of faculty and staff members at Stockton just by looking at the turn out of the dinner. The Event Room was packed full of bright eyed students and gleaming professors grateful for the invite. There were at least fifty tables set up with about fourteen seats each so you can only imagine the magnitude of the event.

The other really cool thing about the dinner was that was an endless supply of free gourmet food just in time for Thanksgiving. The food was really good. Personally, just the food alone provided incentive for me to participate in the next annual dinner. There was mashed potatoes and sweet potato pie, and penne de vodka, and a meat station, and an assortment of bread right out of the oven, and MORE. It was just really good.

If you or a friend are ever looking for an opportunity to show your professors that you care and appreciate them, the Student Faculty and Staff Dinner is the place to go. Besides eating, I got to sit down with my favorite professors, and other professors at my table, and converse with them. I was really nice actually getting to know them outside the classroom setting. The dinner encourages a healthy and personal relationship between staff and students which, like Stockton, is very distinctive.