In celebration of National Pi Day, the Tau Beta Pi hosted its Pi(e) Your Professor Day on March 14 in the Engineering Center atrium.
Between noon and 2 p.m., students could pay $5 to smash two plates full of shaving cream into their professors’ faces.
This is the first time the event has been hosted since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We finally had an e-board that was really committed to getting it back, and a huge thank you to them, because it wouldn’t have been possible without them,” Tau Beta Pi President Justin Lasecki said.
“This is the biggest event that we host. We host different volunteer service events throughout the semester, but this has always been the biggest one,” he added.
The proceeds from the event were donated to the Oxford/Orion FISH Food Pantry.
“We’ve worked with them before, and they’re a really good organization,” Lasecki said.
Seven brave professors from the School of Engineering and Computer Science (SECS) offered themselves to get pied — the largest number of volunteers in the event’s history. Dean Louay Chamra, Associate Professor Christopher J. Kobus, Professor Laila Guessous, Professor Xia Wang, Special Instructor William Edwards, Assistant Professor Sarah Beetham, Assistant Professor Alycen Wiacek and Lecturer Mike Peterson volunteered their time.
Chamra said he participated in the event to show support for the student groups in SECS.
“I appreciate the students and student organizations. They do a lot of volunteer work, but at the same time, we have to show our appreciation,” he said. “That’s a great way to show teamwork.”
Guessous was the main target of the afternoon and walked away with an apple pie as the prize.
“It’s fun for students to have the opportunity to just smash things on their professors. It’s for charity,” Guessous said.
Her title as “most pied professor” continues a legacy.
“I did this several years ago, and I was the most pied professor that year, so I had the title that I needed to regain,” Guessous said. “I told my students that they should feel free to pie me, and a lot of them showed up to do that with gusto.”
Guessous added that the event is a good way to showcase that engineers can loosen up.
“People often think of engineers as, ‘Oh, they don’t know how to have fun,’” she said. “Well, first, it’s Pi Day — the number pi. It’s our day, so let’s do something fun.”
Student Katie Nagy said she attended because it involves good fun for a good cause.
“These events are always nice to have because it goes toward charity,” Nagy said. “And if you get a pie, you get to pie a professor…that’s like the best part about it.”
Nagy chose to pie Wang.
“I actually got her to do this [event]. She was like, ‘How does this work?’ I’m like, ‘Well, they pay for a pie, and you get pied,’” she said. “She goes, ‘Oh okay, it won’t get in my face?’ I’m like yeah, no, she doesn’t even realize that it literally covers your entire face. So I pied her just for fun.”
In the end, $245 was donated to Oxford/Orion FISH Food Pantry.
For more information about Tau Beta Pi, visit the organization’s Grizzorgs page.
