SAISers Re-energize at Cookie Hour

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By RUI ZHONG

WASHINGTON– At 4 p.m. on on Tuesday, Oct. 14, the SAIS cafe in the Nitze building was as packed with people as it was during any lunch rush, filled with students of various concentrations and standings. For a brief moment, instead of figuring out assignments and projects, they could ponder: Chocolate Chip or Oatmeal Raisin?

The first Cookie Hour of the school year provided coffee, cookies, and fresh fruit as a study break for the SAIS community. The event was an initiative started and managed in past years by Lisa Kahn, former director of Student Life at SAIS. Current SGA President Chris Burger said “the goal or purpose is to provide a weekly opportunity to get students to take a break from their studies, get together, interact, [and] meet new people.” While previously Student Life was able to start Cookie Hour earlier during the school year, “it was on hiatus” due to Kahn’s departure from SAIS “until students [requested] that Cookie Hour come back.” For the time being, SAIS SGA, along with its partners in student groups and offices across campus, is able to supply cookies, fruit and caffeine to students. When a new director of Student Life steps in, they will take up the mantle and continue to offer the treats integral to combating too many midterm study sessions in a row, writer’s blocks, and general academic fatigue.

As usual, tables in the cafe filled quickly, with students milling about with their snack of choice to meet up with classmates and friends. Others, hurrying to late afternoon engagements, stopped by for briefer periods of time for quick pick-me-ups, toting along textbooks and laptops. Downstairs in the basement of the Nitze building, volunteers continuously hurried to home-brew fresh coffee to keep up with demand.

A mid-afternoon sugar rush was welcomed by the many students that were able to attend the Cookie Hour. As with any basic microeconomics model, however, the philosophy of Cookie Hour had a key caveat. “Be careful,” warned the SGA-posted Ad of a bloated mouse at the right hand end of a Marginal Utility curve. “There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.”