Quotes from Professors and Instructors

• Neil Adkin, Classics (282) professor, has obviously earned his own page.
  
• Deborah Archer, English (205) lecturer:
  • To a student struggling to open the window as she'd asked: "It'll feel like you're breaking it." She walks over to the window. "Okay, you arebreaking it."
  • Suddenly narrowing her eyes and adopting a rather suspicious and disgusted tone: "This wasn't the class where we had to explain the difference between homosexuals and pedophiles, was it?" No. Big no.
  • Adjusting the thermostat, which hissed: "I love when it makes that sound--toxic fumes being released. Great, now we can all sue the university."
• Lloyd Ambrosius, History (345) professor:
  • Beginning his lecture after a break: "Try to ignore what's going on in front of you as much as you can."
• Stephen Buhler, English (330E) professor:
  • Taking a break from The Canterbury Tales to discuss the visiting religious zealots' assertions that we're all hell-bound: "I'm teaching you this pornographic stuff, so I'm actually helping you along."
• Professor Cornish, Band Director (?):
  • At graduation, Chancellor Moeser has everyone with honors, distinction, etc. stand for applause: "The rest of y'all just suck!"
  • At graduation, the director of alumni affairs headed for the podium: "We need your money."
  • At graduation, Moeser declares that 'there's no place like Nebraska': "Yeah, that's why he's going to North Carolina."
• Dick Dientsbier, Human Sexuality in Society instructor:
  • "This means that you must have sex or you will explode. So, you ugly people in the front row, sorry."
  • "What am I looking in this file for? You don't know the answer. That will not be on the test."
  • "So men are essentially horny little buggers who can't help but have sex."
  • "...and I'm making this up as I go along..."
  • "My brain is dead today; my estrogen levels must be low." [Ed. Note: Happy now, Ryan?]
• T.A. George, Chemistry professor:
  • After throwing a soccer ball up into the air: "Oh, damn, it didn't come down."
  • "I'm going to put on my safety goggles now, because we all know how nasty Cheetos can get."
  • "Now I'm going to do a demonstration to make this confusing."
    
• Jen Groscup, Psychology (288) instructor:
  • When a student asks how many A's there were on the latest exam: "None. Even if they got a perfect score, they didn't get an A."
• Stephen Hilliard, English (230H) professor:
  • "I'ze gun take roll nah: Mahk!?"
  • "Oh! I have to skip this part; you guys don't care about the French. I forgot about the French."
• David Jaffe, Math (208) instructor:
  • "What is my point? What am I doing here? Wait a minute while I figure this out."
• Emily Greenwald, History (201) professor:
  • "This is not a map that has anything to do with what we've just been talking about."
  • "Wait a minute while I break some more equipment."
• Bob Milliken, English instructor
  • About Plato's The Republic (or ancient Greeks more generally) and "Coed Naked" T-shirts: "You know where they got it!"
  • About the necessity for philosophers to withdraw from common society, which would not understand or appreciate them: "They become their own ghetto, so to speak."
• Amelia M. L. Montes, English professor
  • Explaining why she would try to get Frederick Busch, an author, to visit the class: "...'cause he's so famous and we're really important. We are! We're reading his book."
  • "Oh, I'm sorry, you guys. You all look so bored." Since when do instructors make observations like that?
  • "There's a wonderful book on torture coming out."
• Monte Page, Psychology (287) professor
  • Talking about demon archetypes, in contrast to hero archetypes: "In the case of [Captain] Hook, he got his leg bit off by a fish."
  • When the clip-on mike died and he had to use the stationary one: "I'm tied to this microphone now. I feel like I'm on a leash."
  • "Now that we're all awake, we can continue. Now I forgot what I was saying."
  • About B.F. Skinner's experiments: "I keep wanting to say chicken. It was a pigeon, I swear."
  • "I may be all wet and I'm sure you realize that."
  • In December: "This is the most stressful time of the year for me. I have to avoid shopping malls--everywhere there are crowds of people. Little kids just want to come up and sit on my lap, tell me what they want for Christmas." (Regarding his up to then unacknowledged resemblance to Santa Claus.)
• Svetlana Pashkevich, Modern Languages instructor
  • About the origins of the Russian (Cyrilic) alphabet: "These two brothers said, 'Let's make up an alphabet that no one will be able to understand!'"
• Akim Reinhardt, history (202) instructor, has earned his own page.
  
• Andrew Seeger, German (102) instructor:
  • "After about first grade I told my parents: you know, this place sucks, we gotta move."
    
• Gerald Shapiro, fiction writing instructor
  • "Welcome to a miserable profession."
• Alan Steinweis, history professor
  • After making a reference to a cinematic masterpiece with parallels to what he was talking about at the moment: "...and I am of course referring to South Park: The Movie." (Actually, "Blame Canada" was relevant.)
  • "[Often] the ghetto was not seen so much as a prison, but as a refuge from the world around them."
  • "You're not getting anything strange here."
  • About a 1998 journal article on "scientific face reading": "I think it is really funny, in addition to being pathetic."
  • "If I ever spell anything in Polish, don't trust it."
  • "That's a damn good question."
  • "Now that I've got you in the mood, we can talk about the origins of mass murder."
  • When his cell phone started making noises during a lecture: "That beeps when I'm lying."
  • Drawing stick men on the whiteboard: "This is a very scientific approach... This is a Nazi, say Hitler... he's got a little moustache...."
  • Flipping through a book which included pictures of official Nazi uniforms, including workout clothes: "This is Nazi Ken. I don't think there's a Nazi Barbie."
  • In reference to an Einsatzgruppen leader's PhDs: "If you're wondering what you can do with an economics degree, there's your answer."
  • Before beginning a lecture, halfway through the session: "What class is this?"
  • Dismissing class early on a Friday, after getting behind and off-topic: "Everybody go have a beer."
• Tom Winter, Classics (180) professor
  • About the sex scene in The Epic of Gilgamesh, which was written about 4500 years ago: "Clay tablets or not--it's hot!"
  • "What ritual do you do to honor the goddess of love?"
  • Reproducing a vase painting on the chalkboard: "I'm so glad I took art back in the seventh grade."
  • Ancient Greek logic: "[I have thoughts and feelings] ...And therefore so does that tree!"
  • Explaining an illustration of an ancient Greek man: "Yeah. He's pretty naked."
  • How to get girls in ancient Greece: "Gaaaa! She was a twenty-cow woman!"
  • "Pardon my Latin."
  • Echo speaks to Narcissus and inspires the singing of a few lines from The Rocky Horror Picture Show: "Touch-a, touch-a, touch me!"
  • Someone asks about Pygmalion's treatment of his female ivory statue: "Please! There are children present!"
  • Providing a subtitle for Ovid's Ars Amatoria: "How to get laid in ancient Rome."
  
  
  
  
• An Unknown Anatomy Instructor: "Is it cannibalism if you eat a part of your own body?"
• A Chem 110 Lab TA: "If it doesn't work this time then just make something up."
• An Unknown CSE 230 Instructor: "Take this line of input and F it."
• Unknown [Psych?] 451 Instructor: "I'm a flaming extrovert."