Ever wonder what professors do in faculty meetings?

  • Thread starter Thread starter jtbell
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Professors
Join the discussion
Ask a follow-up here, or get your own question answered by working scientists, mathematicians and engineers — people, not an autocomplete.
Real named experts · corrections over time · the nuance an AI answer skips
3 replies · 1K views
Messages
16,110
Reaction score
8,349
Professors Goofing Off in Faculty Meetings? Bingo! (Chronicle of Higher Education)

11bingo_1.jpg


(No, this is not my bingo card!)
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: Giant
Physics news on Phys.org
I scribble physics equations while I appear to be taking notes :wink: When someone catches me doing it and chastises me, I just laugh like that female news reporter on Futurama does whenever Morbo says anything.
 
Too bad that card doesn't have "reaccreditation" on it. That's our big topic for this year. We've been having orientation meetings about it this week, full of assessment jargon. I should try to design a bingo card just for that stuff!
 
Years ago, before most of you were born, I was a beginning Assistant Prof. At my first faculty meeting, I sat well to the back of the room and kept my head down. The department chair was named Bill, and one of the other senior faculty was also Bill. Bill the faculty member had his copy of Newsweek delivered to his departmental mail box, and every week, just before the faculty meeting he would go by to pick it up to read in the meeting. Bill the faculty member was a rather arrogant fellow, and he would sit in the front row, right under the nose of the chair, reading Newsweek.

At my first meeting, we were well into to the agenda, the chair was rattling on about something, when he paused to say, "Bill, will you put that %X$$!* magazine down. We are talking about important matters here." At that point, Bill the senior faculty member looked up calmly and said, "Bill, when you say something important, I'll pay attention." He then returned to his reading and the room roared! (True story from 1968.)