Graduate Women Across Northwestern held its first Winter Quarter Meal with Strangers last week, an event at which six graduate and professional women socialize with peers from different departments to create relationships spanning fields of study.

The purpose of these dinners is to allow graduate students a chance to socialize across departments, said Corinna Wendisch, GWAN’s social chair and a graduate student in the Department of Mathematics.

“(Attendees) talk about different career goals, or just current events in the world, and come together from their respective viewpoints,” she said.

Founded in Fall 2006 by the Kellogg School of Management’s Women’s Business Association, GWAN was created to give graduate and professional women at Northwestern opportunities for community building.

This quarter, the organization is hosting four Meals with Strangers in restaurants around Evanston. GWAN President Lynn Meissner, a second-year graduate student in the Human Development and Social Policy doctoral program, said the meals — at which six women go out to dinner paid for by GWAN — take place at least four times a quarter.

Graduate students who have attended Meals with Strangers in the past can choose to host a dinner at a restaurant of their choice, and other graduate women can sign up to attend one of the dinners being held that quarter, Wendisch said. Generally, the organizers try to ensure that no two guests are from the same department of study to promote diversity of experiences and perspectives, she added.

Eureka Foong, a first-year graduate student in the Technology and Social Behavior program, attended the Meals with Strangers event at Table to Stix Ramen, 1007 Davis St., on Jan. 13 with five other graduate students. She said she had a great time and met women from the biology, Spanish and Portuguese departments.

“It’s nice to have time to meet up with people from different departments and see what challenges they’re facing,” Foong said. “It’s relatively low-barrier. You just bring people together with free food.”

Throughout the year, GWAN also sponsors workshops, speakers and other events directed at graduate women. Past events have included workshops on negotiating with an adviser, learning how to code and how to balance motherhood with a career, Meissner said.

However, Meals with Strangers continues to be the organization’s staple event. Wendisch said graduate students tend to have a difficult time meeting peers outside of their department, and Meals with Strangers is a good way for such students to connect with each other.

“(Meals with Strangers is) a really good first step for people to get to know GWAN,” Meissner said.

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