UPDATED: September 8, 2014, at 3:42 a.m.

Small groups of Harvard freshmen will now have the opportunity to rub shoulders with star professors over dinner at the Harvard Faculty Club.

The series of twelve dinners is part of a new program called “Uncommon Fare,” which kicks off Sept. 16. The dinners are slated to take place at the Faculty Club over the course of the upcoming year. Each dinner will bring together ten students and one distinguished faculty member.

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The series was made possible by an anonymous donation.  

“We’re thrilled to be the recipients of this generous gift,” Dean of Freshmen Thomas A. Dingman ’67 said. “We have had this as a goal for numerous years.”

According to Dingman, the Freshman Dean’s Office has long looked to add more opportunities for students to build relationships with faculty members.

The FDO already offers some programs aimed at enabling students to develop relationships with Harvard faculty, such as first-year faculty dinners, when freshmen can invite a professor to dinner in Annenberg Hall.

The FDO website notes that “one benefit of being a student at Harvard is the opportunity to develop relationships with the professors, preceptors, teaching fellows, administrators, coaches, and staff who help make Harvard a world-class institution.”

Students from the freshman class will be invited to the Uncommon Fare program by the FDO and the slots for each dinner will be filled on a “first come, first serve” basis.

“We expect it will be an exhilarating evening for the freshmen,” Dingman said.

—Staff writer Carolina I. Portela-Blanco can be reached at cportelablanco@college.harvard.edu.