Faculty and staff members and students braved snow and extreme wind-chills to attend an annual Colonial tradition, a midnight breakfast held from 10:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. in the Marvin Center.
An estimated 2,500 students took breaks from studying for finals to attend the breakfast, with a menu featuring egg frittatas, turkey sausage, potatoes, French toast and biscuits. About 100 faculty and staff members, including President Steven Knapp and Provost Steve Lerman, served the students.
“It’s a great way to connect with students and make sure they are fed for their finals,” said Michael Akin, B.A. ’03, M.B.A. ’07, assistant vice president for governmental, international and community relations, who was attending his fourth breakfast as a volunteer. Although attending as a student was “always a highlight,” Mr. Akin prefers serving. “I get the pleasure of doing so without having to go take the final at the end,” he said.
Mr. Akin joked that the woman serving sausages to his right, Nancy Haaga, managing director of campus support services, had “pretty large sausage giving-out shoes” to fill, having inherited her beat from Dr. Knapp.
“The pressure is pretty intense, because he is pretty efficient. He can use the tongs with both hands. I’m only right handed,” she said. “President Knapp is the ambidextrous sausage server.”
“It’s an event with terrific spirit,” said Dr. Knapp, who served sausages to students at the beginning of the event, helped cut a cake and delivered informal remarks, which were interrupted by a “flash mob” of performers from GW Troubadours and Capital Funk.
“A lot of students and alumni tell me this is their favorite event, because they get to have a relaxed moment with faculty and staff in the middle of the tension of exams,” he said.
By far, the most entertaining trio of servers was Bob Chernak, Ed.D. ’97, senior vice president of student and academic support services; Michael Peller, assistant vice president for events and venues; and Seth Weinshel, director of housing programs assignments.
“We get a little giddy when we are serving this late at night,” said Mr. Peller.
Mr. Chernak introduced the event more than two decades ago as a way for faculty and staff to offer “an expression of confidence” in students during exam periods.
“I thought the event was a good way to interact with students in a non-professional setting,” said Nathan Slusher, associate director of undergraduate advising at the Elliott School. Mr. Slusher had anticipated serving food, but enjoyed manning one of the doors. “It lets me greet students as they come in from the cold,” he said.
Freshman and international affairs major Phillip Bradshaw heard about breakfast over email and from his house proctor. “I was hungry and I wanted free food. I didn’t expect the turnout to be this large or there to be a raffle, awards and events,” he said.
Mr. Bradshaw, who sampled everything on the menu but the eggs, said the servers were “really nice.”
He was asked if he recognized anyone. “Who were they?” he wondered. Told there was a vice president and several senior staff members dishing up the breakfast, he said he’d had a hunch something was different about the servers.
Kaleigh Cohen, a freshman studying international business, also called the service “very friendly” and also had not been aware of the identities of the people on the other side of the counter.
Ms. Cohen, who came for the good food and to dance with her roommate, a member of the First Ladies dance team, said she had finished two finals and had two more coming up later on in the week. “I’m up late every night, but extra late now,” she said. “I think every school should have a midnight breakfast.”
GW Today caught senior Julie Bindelglass on her way into the Marvin Center.
“It smells wonderful. It smells like the best food of all year, because it’s midnight breakfast,” said the former president of the Student Association, who was attending her fourth breakfast.
“As a senior it’s something you’ve got to do,” she said. “This is my 45 minute break for the week!”