The Concordian

It wasn’t quite a revolution at Boston Harbor, but it was a nice tea party with some intriguing ideas.

Students, faculty, and staff showed up to the Alexander Center for the Fine Arts last Friday for the first in a series of tea parties held by President Aloia. Dr. Aloia plans to have the parties on a regular basis and to use them as an informal forum where all members of the campus can exchange thoughts, suggestions, and ideas with the president and each other.

“We had some very good conversations and some great suggestions were made,” Dr. Aloia said. “We talked about everything from building graduate programs to having more services for parents and their kids.”

The idea occurred to the president as a way to make himself more available to a broader public on a fairly regular basis.

“My calendar gets very busy very quick,” he said, “but I want to make sure that I have a chance to meet with folks and to set aside some informal time for faculty, staff, or students to get together, have a cup of coffee, and just talk.”

Dr. Aloia spoke about the nature, frequency, and locations of future tea parties and how they may be adapted to everyone’s schedule – including his own.

“What I don’t want, initially, is to have it, announce it, and then have to cancel it,” he said. “Each week, after Thursday, we’ll look at next week and schedule it again. We’ll do it at least a coupe times a month, if not once a week.”

He also said that it is likely that location of the parties may vary in order to accommodate members of the campus who may or may not be able to make to one place each week.

Following the first tea party on Friday, Aloia expressed his satisfaction and reiterated his intent to hold more tea parties in the future.

“I think it went over very well. I’d just like to have some time where people can come and ask about things we’re doing, or to ask me to clarify or update them on some of those things,” he said, “or they can just ask me my favorite joke.”

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