A new espresso bar in the lobby of Dodge Hall welcomed School of the Arts students as they returned to classes last week.
If it was not the first, it was the most noticeable innovation of Dean Robert Fitzpatrick since becoming the new dean of the school in July.
Some professors have called the espresso bar a work of genius while students are showing their approval by ordering cup after cup of cappuccino, latte and double espresso macchiato--decaf, with soy milk.
"It's been in operation for one week, and business has been phenomenal," Fitzpatrick said.
But Fitzpatrick believes this is about more than coffee.
"This is not a frill," he said. "It's one of the most important educational things we've done recently. It gives everyone an excuse to talk to people that they don't know. To sit down at a table and share it with a stranger, and share ideas.
"I'm very interested in students pursuing interdisciplinary work, and breaking down barriers and making sure that poets don't just stay with poets, painters with painters and musicians with musicians. And I thought the best single way to do that, and the most immediate educational contribution I could make to the School of the Arts, was to create an espresso bar."
The bar is located at the third floor north entrance to Dodge Hall and is surrounded by cafe tables inside the lobby and outside on the terrace.
The array of coffees, tea, juice, muffins and soda drinks are sold by a private vendor, Coffee Times.
Fitzpatrick thanked Executive Vice President for Administration Emily Lloyd for cutting through the red tape and approving the installation in time for the start of classes.
Fitzpatrick said he and Lloyd were so committed to the espresso bar idea that they would have stood outside "with a Bunsen burner serving coffee on the first day of classes."
Already, the cafe has become a meeting place. The walls have become a showcase for student art work.
Some faculty members have begun conducting office hours in the cafe.
And the Writing Division held its student/faculty evening social on the terrace.
"I saw Andrew Sarris, one of the most distinguished members of the film faculty, sitting at the cafe for a couple of hours, with a couple of students, with a cup of coffee. Without that cafe, those students would never have had that kind of encounter," Fitzpatrick said.
Fitzpatrick said he is also pleased to give a face lift to the formerly dreary lobby of Dodge Hall.
"When I was meeting with the search committee [for the new dean], one of the student members of the committee asked, if I were to become dean, what would be the first thing I would do."
" And I said I would take a stick of dynamite and blow up the lobby of Dodge Hall--which was probably the most depressing space I had ever encountered--and create an espresso bar.
"And the reason for that is that I felt it was very important that students and faculty from every discipline have a place to meet, to talk, to interact, and there was no such space in Dodge or for the School of the Arts," Fitzpatrick said.