Professor Pet Peeves
The good, the bad and the ugly – what professors catch students doing in class.
The scenario plays out on a daily basis: That all too familiar buzz begins burning a hole in your pocket. Your gaze shifts downward, fixated. Your fingers begin dancing across keypad. You keep low and out of sight, so as to not get called out. On day one, the syllabus clearly read: “Turn cell phones off during class time.” But that doesn’t matter right now.
Suddenly, an eerie feeling sets in; everyone around you falls silent and the professor has stopped lecturing. An embarrassing moment ensues.
The Good
“I expect students to do more than just listen to me talk and do the work,” explains Bill Reader, a professor in the Scripps School of Journalism. “It’s hard to come up with an example of good behavior though, because good behavior is the norm.”
Good students show up to class on time, participate, study for the exams and generally fare well. But being attentive and engaging in the class, however, will only get you so far.
“I think it all comes down to common sense,” says B. David Ridpath, professor of Recreation and Sport Sciences. “If you were on a date with a significant other, you wouldn’t be sitting there texting or picking up your phone or reading The Post. Why would you do that in class?”
The Bad
“Sometimes grades don’t even matter when the time comes for recommendations,” adds Ridpath. “Some things just stand out so much, they’re hard to ignore.” For Dr. Jeremy Webster, dean of the honors tutorial college, in-class feasts are those things.
“I don’t mind when students eat a little something,” Webster says. “But when it’s like…spaghetti? Or something very aromatic and smelly; where everyone sits in a roundtable format and has to watch you eat. That’s when it becomes a distraction.”
“Something small is alright. I understand you’re busy and this is your only chance in a hectic schedule. But that kid’s spaghetti incident was really over the top.”
The Ugly
When asked what the worst of the worst could be, Ridpath has one instance seared into his memory.
“I was teaching a graduate course and there was a day when we were hosting an esteemed guest speaker,” Ridpath explains. “As he gave his speech I noticed some of the students were on their laptops – not paying attention at all – and actually laughing at their screens. Turns out, they were all IM-ing each other about the guest speaker – right in front of him!”
Ridpath, a rational military man, bit his tongue for the next few moments, before unleashing on the unsuspecting students.
“I calmly allowed the gentleman to finish and pulled him in the hall to offer my sincerest apology. Then I marched back into the classroom and you could have heard a pin drop when I was through with them.”