College professors say the darndest things

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

My marching band director in college was nuts. Here’s a sampling of things he said (i.e. yelled) at us, keeping in mind that he was deadly serious when he said each of these things:

“Nobody respond to any questions I ask!”

“Sometime in your life you should be beaten to death for that!” …Maybe sometime near the end of it?

Admonishing a student for making a silly mistake on the field: “How could you make a mistake like that, Darius?!” The funny part being that he mispronounced the student’s name (he said “dare-EYE-us” instead of “DARE-ee-us”), immediately corrected himself, and then went on like nothing ironic had happened.

And, my favorite: “I hate you all!” I’m pretty sure he really meant it too!
Not something a professor said in class, but as I was walking by an old philosophy professor of mine, I happened to overhear something he was saying to someone else: “I hope they suffer for weeks with third degree burns over ninety percent of their body.” I sometimes wonder who he was wishing that on. His students, maybe? :stuck_out_tongue:
My first day of Logic I, the professor wrote the following on the board: “All college students are commies. All commies love liver. Therefore, all college students love liver.” This was to show that an argument can be valid even if none of the premises are true, but it was amusing that some people in the class seemed to take offense to it.

42

This thread needs a bump, so here’s my story:

I went to an art school where academics tended to be a bit weak. There was a freshman writing course that everyone was required to take, though I’m not sure what we were supposed to learn in it, as our professor was an anarchist punk who had somehow wrangled himself a philosophy degree or two. For one class, he brought in a friend of his who was an expert on mody modification, having something like 30 piercings, plus a few tattoos and a pretty large scarification. That was Week Two of studying body modification (I don’t remember why we were studying body mod in a composition course); for Part One we took a field trip to the Baltimore Tattoo Museum and watched the Prof get a tattoo of the anarchy symbol on his ankle.

During my senior year, I took another course of his, called “Intelluctual History II: Punk.” We started out with Martin Luther and ended up bitching about Avril Lavigne. The class was entirely discussion-based, with assigned readings outside of class. The “discussions,” however, often turned into stories from the Prof about his punk heydeys in the 70s and 80s, taking various drugs and running from the cops. One day, the discussion landed briefly, and inexplicably, on gingerbread men, and then veered in such a manner that we found out that he enjoyed performaing oral sex on his wife, who was a creative writing professor at the college, and had done so the night before. Some joker piped up, “So she’s a cunning linguist?” while the class passed around a cartoon someone else had quickly sketched of the professor and his wife as gingerbread people, which was immediately labed The Cunning Linguist.

43

Well, I would certainly hope so…

I had a chem teacher in high school who would do fiery/explosive/smoky stuff, until people started breaking into the chemical storage locker to steal stuff for their own experiments…

On a much tamer note, my father, who taught freshman English Composition in college, had a rubber stamp reading “PIFFLE!” which he would use on papers.

He also used Monty Python’s Matching Tie & Handkerchief when covering satire.

44

One of mine, courtesy of Introduction to Drama:

“Greek comedians wore exaggerated costumes, especially the parts representing the male anatomy. As you can probably tell from Lysistrata, Aristophanes milked this for all it was worth.”

I didn’t even notice I’d said this until one of my students wrote it down at the bottom of an in-class writing assignment, with a note: “Interesting choice of words, Ms. Porpentine…”

:smack:

45

I had a great physics/astronomy prof.

When writing force or free body diagrams on the board, he would always draw this silly looking elephant as the subject, no matter what the context.

It started off innocently…elephant on a ramp, elephant on a string, but grew progressively more surreal. Elephant in orbit, elephant in a space capsule, elephant in a cyclotron (“assume a very small elephant,” we were told). And it was always pointed out that this was an ideal spherical uncompressable elephant as a disclaimer. The elephant always had a happy little grin on its face.

This one time, he was demonstrating orbital mechanics and drew a big circle (the earth). He placed on this circle the obligatory elephant facing right. To the left of the elephant, he drew monkey with a rifle facing left. He then went to explain how the monkey could shoot the elephant by firing the bullet at elephant level at orbital velocity (all things being ideal of course). He finished up the explanation with a deadpan “Viscious bastards, those monkeys.”

46

Unfortunately, my college experiences were rather mundane compared to the other posts here, but I do have some rather fun stories about a group of teachers at my high school in Hawaii.

My freshman year, Mr. P., a tall, lanky guy, who looked like a caricature anyway, had a rather off-beat sense of humor and, although his lectures usually came straight out of the book, if you got him off-topic, he could be fun. There was one kid who was wasted all the time, but managed to test into AP chemistry. He would come in every other day wasted and stoned and would always ask stupid questions and basically disrupt class in a rather mundane way. As a student, he was pretty much a waste of time and space for Mr. P. At one point in the year, the classmate missed more than his normal 2 days in a row and we surmised he finally dropped out or something. He finally came back in one day and once everyone was seated, but before Mr.P. started his lecture, the kid spoke up. “Hey, Mr. P…why’d you call me a vegetable!!!” We sat there giggling and figured we would never know the other side of the story because it would surely violate the student’s rights to privacy. But, being the work of art he was, the student filled us in on the phone conversation. Apparently, Mr. P., fed up with the disruptions and truancy, had called the kid’s parents at home and had gotten his mother. At some point in the conversation, he told the kid’s mom he was vegetable. At this point, we were on the floor dying. The kid couldn’t figure out what we thought was so funny, but needless to say, he transfered out of that class.
That was the same teacher who had come into our physiology class the year before and asked if anyone had two quartes for a half dollar. One rather well-meaning student gave him the two quarters and Mr. P. gave him one part of a dollar bill that had been cut in half!!

Probably the funniest story was one of his housemates, Mr. C. He was a sandy blonde guy who had a real light hearted way about him, but as casual as he was, he managed to still teach us quite a bit. He was in exceptional shape for someone his age and throughout Sep, Oct, and Nov, he never missed a day of school. Then about mid-December and continuing well into March, he’d miss 2 or 3 days in a row at a time. None of could figure out what was wrong and he would never offer an explanation. He would just pick up right where we left off as if nothing had happened. Then about mid-January, during one of his missed class periods, our sub had left the room, and we started talking about the high surf that had been rolling in on the North Shore due to the winter storms that formed in the Northern Pacific. At some point, someone joked that maybe Mr. C. had skipped school to go surfing. When he came back the following Monday, just as a joke, someone asked him how the surf was that day. Instead of the lost look you would expect, he gave us a deer in the headlights look for a second, then grinned from ear to ear…he had been found. He confessed to us that he had in fact been skipping school to catch the big waves…then laughed and asked us to keep it quiet. Anytime he missed class after that, the first thing we asked him when he came back was if the surf was breaking to the right or the left…lol

47

I had a wonderful Psychology professor who taught Animal Behavior. On the first day of class he handed out the syllabus, then proceeded to go over in great detail what would be be covered and required in the class, topics, 2-3 papers, exams, etc. I’d had a class with him before, and knew he was a fascinating lecturer. So I was all excited about all the things we’d be learning and just pleased as can be.

Then he says, unfortunately, this class has been overbooked by the registrar. I’ll only be teaching 25 students, and we’ve got 40 in here. So I’m going to leave the room now, and if you don’t want to continue with the course, you can leave. I’ll be back in 15 minutes.

I sat there like, what’s gotten into him? Surely no one will leave this fascinating Animal Behavior class?

Well, he knew better than I did. Pretty darn near 15 students walked out. Apparently there were a lot of people who just thought Animal Behavior would be a super easy class, and weren’t nearly as thrilled about it as I was, if it meant writing papers and taking exams.

I enjoyed the rest of the semester immmensely.

48

I just remembered my freshman ethics teacher.

He had a degree in Geology, and constantly complained that he had to teach ethics.

He used to give us ethical dilemmas like “so, you’ve got some jews on a boat and you’re dutch. what do you do**?” No wonder he got so many blank stares.
**this was a problem set during world war two and the discussion was whether or not you sheltered the jews from hitler. None of this was explained in the dilemma, though.

49

Professor hobbles in on his two canes, and announces about halfway from the front of the class (the door was at the very back) that he’s received several offers to marry him to get better marks. As he nears my front-row desk, he begins talking about how he doesn’t appreciate it. Then he swats my desk with one of his canes, points it at me, and tells me “Stop fucking with my heart!”

I loved it.

50

I’ve had my share of freakish professors during an engineering degree, med school and residency.

Rather than tell detailled stories, I’ll just print out a handful of quotes that stick in my head.

(Mechanics I)
“A third of you will fail this class. So what are you going to do? Are you going to cry? Are you going to ask your mother to come and hold your hand during the exam? The only mother we’re interested in in this course is Mother Nature. And she couldn’t care less if you flunk mechanics one.”

(Biochemistry)
(Professor red with rage at the indignity of multivitamins containing minerals that are not actually used by the body so they can claim more “vitamins and minerals”)
“And nickel? What the fuck do you want with nickel?”

(Clinical Methods)
(Staring at a student during the introductory session)
“Wow. Look at the slope on that forehead. You know what you look like? You look like a goddamn caveman. C’mon, Cro-Magnon. I’m gonna introduce you to some of the people around here.”

(After entering the room during the Clinical Methods Practical Exam)
“Well, if it isn’t my nemesis.”

(Ethics in Medicine)
“A patient of mine died, and since they didn’t have any family they gave me their house. I’ve not decided what to do with it yet.”

(Hematologist who grew up in Nazi Germany, out of nowhere)
“You know, Jews like to sell stuff. If a Jew had just one candlestick, he wouldn’t sell it to you because than he’d have nothing left to sell.”

(Cardiologist)
“You know, if you ever see a patient smoking, just grab the cigarette and put it out between their eyes. And you can tell them Dr. J— told you to do it!”

(Obstetrician)
“We use a yellowish solution during colposcopy. It looks kind of like mustard. I’ll bet the patient feels like a big old hot dog.”

51

This isn’t quite the same thing, but …

Fifteen years ago, I’m taking a class on the American Civil War. One Tuesday morning I sit down to take a test. Said exam had just three questions; we got to pick two to answer, and each would be weighted equally.

Unfortunately, for the past two weeks I’d been trying to get into Carol C’s pants rather than hitting the books. I look at question number one and have no idea what the answer is. I look at question two and don’t even understand the question. Question three, fortunately, was something I felt competent to answer.

So I took a deep breath and resigned myself to the fact that the best possible grade I was going to get was a 50. That in mind I write, “Omit” under question number 1. Under question number two I wrote, “I do not know the answer and I refuse to bullshit you.” For question number three I wrote a brilliant answer, its brilliance made possible by the fact that I didn’t have to waste any time on the other two questions.

A week passes. The next Tuesday the tests are returned. I examine mine, sure that the only question is how badly I failed–and discover that I’ve gotten a B. In response to my “no bullshit” answer, you see, the instructor had written, “I find your honesty refreshing. Just don’t do it again.” He gave me THIRTY-FIVE POINTS.

I was pretty damn :cool:

52

My most quotable teacher award went to Mr. East. Well, actually it went to Mr. Riley, but since he just quoted Monty Python, Family Guy, Clockwork Orange and the like with me I don’t think he counts. Some of my favorites include
“and that pretty much explained cows and potato chips”
“And people who manufactured cows… Grew cows… Raised cattle”
and when we got off on a language tangent and the subject of who to be formal with in italian came up “…someone wearing a hat…”
Great teacher, although I’m a little sick of being told I have the soul of a 36-year-old history teacher because of how often I talked to him and Riley outside of class.

Oh, to continue the weird analogies by teachers thing that was going for a while, my biology teacher taught us that proteins were rubber duckies in a sea of ping pong balls. There were also rubber monkeys in there, but I can’t remember what they represented right now…

53

I have just had the privilege of completing a course taught by a phenomenal archaeology/anthropology professor. My only regret is that I didn’t start a betting pool among the students to guess how long the professor could go without mentioning the word penis . I’d guess hae averaged around 2.3 mentions per 50-minute class!

54

I’m enjoying these anecdotes, although Post #16 left me wondering what is a “totally gay expression?” Is it the opposite of a “totally straight expression?” Can’t picture either. In any case, these are my quotable quotes:

A sex ed professor asked his students if they knew the technical term for people who use the rhythm method of contraception. After no one came up with the answer, he told them, “They’re called… parents.”

An English professor was frustrated when not one student bothered to read the assigned poem. “In line number seven, the poet mentions a ‘rill.’ Can anyone tell me what a ‘rill’ is?” he asked. Not one hand went up. “C’mon, people, this is your native tongue!” he railed.

My 11th grade English teacher told the class, “It just came to me why you’re having difficulty with modern poetry. A lot of modern poetry has sexual themes and imagery. These poems may make more sense once you go away to college.”

55

I had a philsophy prof who handed out a lot of short writing assignments. Then after they were all handed in, he would first read aloud the one he liked the most. Then he would choose the ones he hated the most and read them aloud, liberally insulting the person who’d written them. His comments weren’t useful or constructive, just insulting. He never said who it was but usually you could tell, by who looked the reddest.

By some miracle, I was never chosen for “worst paper.” I was, by no miracle at all, also never chosen for “Best paper.” Still, it was an astonishingly evil thing to do.

I also had a geography professor who simply could not speak to an audience. A sentence might go something like this:

“Uh. Uhhhhh. Uh. As we, uhhh. Uhhhh, uhhh, uhhh. See here on this graph, uhhhhhhhhhh. Uh, Um. It, uh, shows. Uhhhh, uh. Uh. Uh. Uh. Uhhhhhh. What we’re saying. Uhhhhh. Uh. Uh. Uh? Uh!”

Once a buddy and I used hash marks to count the "uh"s, and gave up at 300. This was an hour long lecture.

I had a professor who didn’t bathe and stank to high heaven. I had several professors who obviously didn’t plan their lessons out and just sort of shuffled through whatever came to mind and then handed out unrelated readings. In my first year psych course we had at least six lecturers and each was worse than the last. This was all at a really, really good school, incidentally, not some off brand community college. I had some good profs too, mind you, but it was a pretty even split.

This is why I don’t understand it when people complain about public schools and say we need to hire teachers who, instead of taking education degrees, are subject matter experts. I’ve been tought by the subject matter experts, and believe me, it’s NOT a good idea.

56

A few noteworthy teachers/professors:

Mr. M., my high-school physics teacher. “Do not touch this wire. It will kill you. You will die.” (said in a cheery tone of voice)

Mr. P. BEST CEGEP ENGLISH TEACHER EVER. I’ve described him before. Flaming queen; role model of mine. He made us deconstruct the video for Express Yourself. He pronounced punctuation marks (“If all you do is sit at the back of the class and screw around, you will fail, comma, again!”) He drew Wonder Woman on our assignments and turned every course into Queers In Literature. We loved him, yes we did.

My Sexual Ethics prof. in university. One time, to provide an example of “sexual essentialism,” he read out the lyrics to the Bloodhound Gang’s “Bad Touch.” You have to imagine this slightly mousy, tweedy guy from the Religion department articulating very precisely, as though at a poetry recital: “You and me, baby, ain’t nothing but mammals, so let’s do it like they do on the Discovery Channel. Getting horny now.”

57

A sociology professor required as to read Ratner’s Star, by Don DeLillo, and then write a three-page response to it. I was naively honest in writing down exactly how I felt about the book, using words like “nonsense” and “incoherent”. While he was handing back the graded papers, at exactly the moment he handed me my paper he said: “Just one thing. Please don’t project your own flaws as a reader onto the book.” (I consider him to be one of my best professors ever.)

During my first year of graduate school, I took algebra from a very strangle looking one-armed Russian group theorist. Whenever a student asked for the solution to a problem, he would begin my explaining that the problem was “trivial”, even if the proof was multiple pages in length. At one point he gave us a homework assignment of twenty-five pages, which we had three weeks to complete. About two weeks in, he asked whether we were finished or not. We responded that we had finished some of the problems but not others. Everyone remarked that problem 18 was particularly challenging. (Keep in mind that we’re all recent graduates from some of America’s top colleges.) Professors responds: “When I was a boy in Russia, I solved problem 18 when I was in fourth grade. It took me five minutes.”

On another occasion, a student was at the board presenting the solution to a home work problem. “The problem asks us to find the number of isomorphism classes of matrices under the following relations etc… The answer is 218,456,864,232. I will now prove this by…” At this point the professor cuts in: “The anwer is seven. Sit down.” (Perhaps you had to be there to appreciate the comedic effect.)

A computer science professor in college always included drawings of one-eyed smiling aliens on his notes. He also sometimes wrote the notes in newspaper format, with headlines such as “New supercomputer executes infinite loop in under four seconds.”

58

I issue my thanks! to all who shared their stories.

The mention of high school teachers in this thread got me thinking…

I recall a discussion with my very intelligent and witty female 11th grade history teacher about using the article ‘an’ before the word ‘historical’ or ‘history.’ It used to annoy me when I heard someone say ‘this is an historical landmark,’ for example, because the ‘h’ is not silent like in the word ‘hour.’ My teacher insisted ‘an’ was correctly used in such case and the discussion ended. A year later, she had surgery to remove her uterus and was gone from school for a month. Upon her return, I asked her if she remember our conversation the year before and she nodded. So, I said with a big smile, “It’s good to see an history teacher recover from an hysterectomy.” :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

Her reply: “ArchitectChore, you’re such a little shit.”

59

My dad went to MIT, and this was one of his main complaints. The profs seemed to regard the school as a good research facility with this niggling point about teaching undergrad students. Being the oldest of the kids, when I looked at colleges, he asked them if they had “publish or perish” doctrines. He hated being ignored by the professors and (get this) taught from their unfiinished textbooks that had numerous errors still in them!

60

Thought of another thing. My 8th grade science teacher would ask us to start in on hard drugs, because then we’d be dead by the time we reached the age of the job market, and things would be easier for his own kids.

I thought he did a great job of preaching about it without looking like a dork. No one rolled their eyes at him when he came at it that way.