# What is posted on professors' doors at colleges and universities? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 1, 2006, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-posted-on-professors-doors-at-colleges-and-universities/374876 "2006-10-01T21:07:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2006, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-posted-on-professors-doors-at-colleges-and-universities/374876/21 "2006-10-02T02:14:22Z")
[QUOTE=Sublight] The classrooms where I went never had anything on the doors except announcements about that specific room. The bulletin boards were mostly campus activities, which was a mix of left and right groups. As for the offices, it was usually either Sid Harris cartoons (Physics dept.) or medieval art (History). [/QUOTE] And if it matters, this was at Harvard, which from what people tell me is supposedly a wild-eyed bastion of ivory-tower liberalism (when they’re not busy telling me it’s a partriarchal enclave of old-money conservatism). ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2006, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-posted-on-professors-doors-at-colleges-and-universities/374876/22 "2006-10-02T02:24:35Z")
The doors seem pretty bare here at UChicago. I haven’t noticed anything of note posted on them, beyond announcements and other official stuff. But I haven’t been paying very close attention. I’ll keep my eyes open this week. For what it’s worth, at Korea University I never saw anything posted on any of the professors’ doors. I think it would have been weird if there had been. ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2006, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-posted-on-professors-doors-at-colleges-and-universities/374876/23 "2006-10-02T02:30:03Z")
Shoshana–Whaaaat? There are _regulations_ on what you can have on your office door? Like, written out somewhere? In the northwest? Where on earth are you? I’m having a hard time imagining that at UW or U of O. ---
**Author:** ![ACC\_Expat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/76d3ee/32.png) [@ACC\_Expat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ACC_Expat)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2006, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-posted-on-professors-doors-at-colleges-and-universities/374876/24 "2006-10-02T03:09:26Z")
I have the title pages of some of my favorite crazy 17th century (English Civil War era) pamphlets. These things are so over the top that some of my students thought I did them up in Photoshop. Most professors I know have dorky stuff that pertains to their area of research expertise on their doors. The faculty who run institutes and sponsor conferences, journals and undergrad programs keep the notices on their door. Quite a few professors have cartoons on the door. Usual suspects like “The Far Side” and “The New Yorker” make frequent appearances, but there are also many political cartoons (mostly leftish) and cartoons that make fun of academe (or conversely, of the Decline of the Student). ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2006, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-posted-on-professors-doors-at-colleges-and-universities/374876/25 "2006-10-02T03:09:36Z")
The regulation is that as a partially state-funded agency, faculty and staff may not endorse any candidate or position. This includes all venues–classroom, letters to the editor naming our university affiliation, posts on university listservs, etc. This includes posted materials. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2006, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-posted-on-professors-doors-at-colleges-and-universities/374876/26 "2006-10-02T14:01:15Z")
In the Horticulture department where I now work, there is nothing on the doors–I suppose there is a rule against it. There are bulletin boards provided that are full of advertisements for other graduate programs and expensive laboratory equipment. In the English department that I was really familiar with, yes, there was one professor who had some anti-American stuff on her door, but she was really–really–really unpopular with everyone. Most people had flyers for conferences they were attending and for upcoming local literature talks, New Yorker and Far Side cartoons, newspaper clippings about themselves, and other clever joke-stuff, none of it particularly political. ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2006, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-posted-on-professors-doors-at-colleges-and-universities/374876/27 "2006-10-02T15:30:26Z")
I can put up anything I please. My (non-USA) corridor: Lots of seminar notices, essay contests, scholarships and contact hours; A few pointed remarks about the state of the building and competence of the university administration; A sign that suggests that retirement is half the money and twice the husband; The first page of a paper about the costs and benefits of charitable skydiving; A picture of Mr Burns from _The Simpsons_; Something to do with Iron Chef; A pseudo-propaganda picture of a soldier stating “I’m digging my own grave, shouldn’t you?”; Several woodland scenes; Several cartoons indicating a dislike of Australian Rules Football; and One colour picture of Mr Bush looking rather unfriendly. That’s one floor, but there are economists, accountants, political scientists, anthropologists and sociologists on it. ---
**Author:** ![black\_rabbit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f19dbf/32.png) [@black\_rabbit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rabbit)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2006, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-posted-on-professors-doors-at-colleges-and-universities/374876/28 "2006-10-02T16:09:18Z")
I see mostly cartoons, journal articles that the prof has either authored or found interesting, conference and other event notices, and the occasional Microsoft joke. Frustratingly, office hours postings are more rare than any of the above. I attend the Applied Sciences college of a large urban state university, in the IT/CS department. Back in the late 90’s when I was a History major in the same school’s A&S college, it was pretty much the same deal. The articles were “political” only in the same sense that any work of history is political. Neither the flaming liberal Muslim convert Middle East specialist nor the arch-paleocon military specialist had anything particularly partisan posted. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-posted-on-professors-doors-at-colleges-and-universities/374876.md?page=1)