By Aliyah Binford | Reporter
To finish off the fall semester, the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core hosts Sweet Thank-You — a casual social event full of food and fun awards to thank the professors for their hard work.
Cedar Park junior and BIC student Shrivalli Penumerthy said she appreciates the event as a way to celebrate her professors.
“This function brings all the BIC students together,” Penumerthy said. “Sometimes we are divided into small groups because of class, but we all come together and express gratitude to our professors, especially during the spirit of thanksgiving.”
Each year, BIC students prepare paper plate awards: superlatives and fun little blurbs written on paper plates that are specific to each professor. Some of these awards are inside jokes between cohorts and professors, while others speak to what professors mean to students.
Students are given the power to vote for their favorite professors to win awards like ‘best hair’ or ‘most likely to be the president,’ as well as more unique ones such as ‘most likely to win a wrestling contest with a bear’ or ‘best evil laugh.’
Algonquin, Ill., sophomore and BIC student Jaime Atadero said her favorite part of the event is the paper plate awards.
“I enjoy the paper plate awards because we get to appreciate the professors in the BIC in their own individual ways,” Atadero said. “It’s a really good opportunity to show appreciation to each of them. My favorite was definitely ‘the only professor who can rock a mohawk’ because ‘Spanks’ (Dr. Spitzer Hanks) can definitely rock a mohawk.”
All BIC students are invited to join, allowing them to have the opportunity to get to know their professors outside of the classroom, which is one of the BIC’s biggest missions as a student body that remains together throughout the college years.
To close out the BIC Sweet Thank-You, each student writes a letter to their favorite professor, which will be hand-delivered within the next week.
Fort Worth sophomore and BIC student Dena Sadler said she thinks it’s important to show professors how grateful students are for them.
“Our professors do a lot for us,” Sadler said. “They just do so much, and they are so busy all the time, and sometimes they just need a break. It is so good for us to give them a little break occasionally. Plus, we’re doing a lot, and they do extra just for us, and it is good to show them that we are grateful for them.”
“This function really speaks to how the BIC is like a family,” Dr. Rachel Toombs, a lecturer in the BIC, said. “You have the same students throughout their career here at Baylor, and you get to watch them grow. This function and others in the past just make you feel valued and seen by your students. A lot of us here know each other, but we only get to spend one term together, so it allows us to catch up and see many different people all together in one space enjoying each other’s company.”
