Students joined Santiago Morgan, Instructor in Mathematics, for a Blue Plate dinner at his house in 2022.
The Dean of Students Office and Student Council (STUCO) has reformed and renamed the Blue Plate program. Now dubbed Fireside Chats, the program invites all campus adults to host an informal conversation or activity that any student can sign up for. As of now, there is no limit on the number of students who can sign up for a Fireside Chat with a faculty member.
Introduced in 2019, Blue Plate provided an annual opportunity for a faculty member and a group of up to eight students to organize a meal at a location of their choice. Each person had a budget of 20 dollars funded by STUCO.
Fireside Chats, with a budget of 40 dollars per group, are designed for snacks, not meals, and no longer allow faculty members to choose the group of students they are dining with. Nate Liang ’25, current Student Body Co-President, described the Fireside Chat program and how it would build upon the foundations of Blue Plate.
“This year, with Fireside Chats, teachers will open their homes or open their common room, or even go to a restaurant… If you’re interested in connecting with that faculty, pull up, swing by, get some food, meet them, meet some new friends. [Also], you’re also unburdened by time constraints… For Fireside Chats the time is [around] two to three hours, so students can come by and leave as they please, and can also meet other faculty,” said Liang.
Liang continued, “The idea is that there will be multiple Fireside Chat sessions around the year so it won’t be a one-and-done experience. If you don’t know the faculty and go to a Blue Plate program, it’s a fleeting experience. We’re hoping that with Fireside Chats, you can meet a ton of campus adults that you weren’t able to connect with outside of class.”
Aya Murata, the Assistant Dean of Students and Residential Life, explained that Fireside Chats were established to give students and adults who might not already know each other an opportunity to build new connections.
“The previous Blue Plate program was predicated on a group of students (who already knew each other) to ask an adult (who they presumably already knew — e.g. a classroom teacher, an advisor, a coach) to share a meal. The Student Council felt like these kinds of bonds are already quite strong so they were looking for ways to create a means to expand relationships between students and adults… On a practical side, since the Blue Plate program was for a meal [versus] Fireside Chats are for a snack/dessert, we are able to include more people in the Fireside Chats model because it isn’t as expensive — the goal is really to include as many adults and students as possible in this program,” wrote Murata in an email to The Phillipian.
Along with Fireside Chats, STUCO is planning on organizing a school-wide dinner in the spring to allow students across grades to meet. With assigned seating and mandatory attendance, the all-school dinner offers another opportunity for students to connect with others from all parts of campus, according to Liang.
Liang noted that while STUCO initially planned Fireside Chats for the fall, the Dean of Students Office ultimately decided to launch the program in the spring due to budgeting and scheduling considerations. This timing change also influenced the decision to replace Blue Plate rather than run both programs simultaneously.
“The Student Council came up with the idea for Fireside Chats. Originally, we were planning it for the fall, which is why the Fireside [idea] came about. Blue Plates usually [happen] in winter. Because of the timing, the Dean of Students ultimately decided that it was a good idea to do Fireside Chats in the spring instead. It wasn’t originally our [STUCO] idea that Fireside Chats would replace Blue Plates, that really was more of a budgeting issue stemming from the Dean of Students,” said Liang.
Mia Isacson ’26 shared her concerns about the shift from Blue Plate to Fireside Chats. While she acknowledged that grabbing a snack could serve a similar purpose, she expressed hesitation about the new format, noting that she would prefer to strengthen existing relationships with teachers rather than meet new ones in a structured setting.
“I did [a] Blue Plate meal last year, but I think you could get the same thing from just going to get a snack… I don’t really see the appeal of having to connect with a bunch of different teachers though. The concept of Fireside Chats would be that I have to sign up with teachers that I don’t know very well to meet them but I’d rather connect with a teacher I already know on a deeper level. Doing a Fireside Chat with an adult I haven’t really connected with before sounds intimidating,” said Isacson.
