Faculty Café
Statement from the Faculty Development Advisory Committee
Dear Faculty:
The Faculty Development Advisory Committee asks that you consider signing a petition (linked below) to support the administration’s allocation of funds to establish a Faculty Café that would operate as a collaboration between Faculty Development, the School of Business, the School of Family and Consumer Sciences, and the School of Technology.
While there are dining and meeting spaces available on campus, none are exclusive to faculty and staff. The Café would provide faculty and staff a dedicated space in which they could interact with their colleagues in an informal environment while enjoying a deli-style restaurant.
The expected faculty and staff benefits are many. The informal networking among faculty and staff would promote the open exchange of ideas across campus units and across disciplinary boundaries. Such open communication would increase commitment to shared governance, would promote the discussion of research and teaching methods, and would build a stronger sense of community on campus. The Café would offer campus units a space to meet with job candidates who are completing their campus interviews. It would also contribute to the improvement of morale on campus, as it would represent a tangible recognition of the indispensable role faculty and staff play in the vibrancy of the University.
It would be housed in Klehm Hall as a dining space open only to faculty, staff, and administrators. The Café would also offer students in each of the schools in the Lumpkin College of Business and Applied Sciences opportunities for integrative learning. The Café would be operated each semester by students in the School of Family and Consumer Sciences (such as Kathy Rhodes’s Commercial Quantity Food Production course in the hospitality program), who would provide the labor, the food, the decorations, table settings, and all else as part of their practical training. Students in the School of Business would benefit from the applied marketing opportunities and students in the School of Technology studying printing and design could produce signage, menus, and promotional materials.
Since the enterprise will require a substantial initial commitment of University resources, the Faculty Development Advisory Committee would like to offer the administration tangible evidence of faculty support for such an endeavor. You can demonstrate your support by following this link to an online petition: https://www.eiu.edu/facdev/facultyCafePetition/login.php.
Simply log in with your EIU credentials to view the petition. Click the specified button and your name will be added to the list of supporters that will be sent to the administration.
A special thanks to Dr. Sace Elder and Ms. Ann Brownson for their work in drafting this petition.
Thank you for taking the time to participate in this process.
