Student Experience

Can we talk? Dining hall challenge aims to get Hoos chatting

When Kiro Ibrahim saw University of Virginia’s interim President Paul Mahoney sit at a Newcomb Dining Hall table, the second-year student sensed a chance.

On his mind was the Trump administration’s Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education, a controversial idea that would give UVA and eight other colleges priority for federal funding if the schools agreed to align with White House priorities.

But after a few moments, Ibrahim decided he could better use this fleeting opportunity to have a different conversation.

“He’s just a person, same as me,” said Ibrahim, who lives in Richmond but is from Egypt. “And I was like, ‘I would really like to know who he is.’ I feel like I learned a lot about who he was before being the interim president.”

Kiro Ibrahim gestures across the table at Mahoney during the “Table Talk” project.

Second-year student Kiro Ibrahim chats with Mahoney during lunch. He said they talked about sports, college affordability and hiking. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)

He and Mahoney chatted about sports, the president’s law background, how important it is to keep UVA affordable, and where to go hiking in the area. Mahoney is an avid hiker. “He gave me a few recommendations of hiking spots, like Skyline Drive and Humpback Rock,” Ibrahim said.

That’s exactly the idea behind the president’s office’s new initiative called “Table Talk.” In UVA’s main dining halls, a few tables sport table tents that ask students to take off their headphones, put down their phones and strike up a conversation with a Hoo they don’t know.

“When people have a meal together, they’re just naturally more open with one another,” Mahoney said. “This is a great opportunity for students to meet people they might not otherwise meet, and form friendships they might not otherwise ever form.”

Table Talk is an extension of one of Mahoney’s top goals as UVA’s interim leader. He prizes engaging conversations in general and especially talking civilly across differences. College, he has said, is one of the few places where young adults will be surrounded by so many different kinds of people, and learning from them is a foundation of the UVA experience.

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Besides Newcomb, there are Table Talk opportunities in the Observatory Hill and Runk dining halls.

Manuela Kodwo, a second-year student from Woodbridge originally from Ghana, also sat with the president. She said this gentle nudge to share a lunch with a stranger is something that could help her and other Hoos expand their social circles.

“I think there is a fear that someone might not want to talk to you, so it is easy to gravitate toward people you already know and who look like you,” she said. “Talking to a random stranger can be a bit hard these days. But the premise here of willingly coming to the table just to talk to each other is really great, because you get to be able to go more deeply without the fear you are crossing some kind of social norm.”

Manuela Kodwo sitting across from Mahoney in the Newcomb Hall cafeteria.

Manuela Kodwo, a second-year student originally from Ghana, shares a bit about herself in a lunchtime conversation with the interim president. She said the new table-top prompts encouraging Hoos to chat up strangers will help students like her make new acquaintances. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)

For Ibrahim, a member of the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society, talking with strangers on Grounds has created connections.

“One of my favorite things to do as a first year is I would – when walking to class – take off my headphones and I would just look at the person walking next to me and I would start talking to them,” he said. “That made me feel connected at UVA because it made me know so many people.”

Even before Table Talk was a thing at UVA, Ibrahim practiced his own version of it. He encourages his classmates to do the same.

“I feel like, today, people don’t really take risks and talk to people like how they used to,” he said. “That was something I practiced a lot, going to random tables where I saw people sitting alone, and I would sit next to them. I would talk to them, and I got to know so many people.”