From Reshma Yaqub's "Text, Translation and Commentary," Spring '92. Two of my professors this semester came right out and said they do not want students to ask questions in class. Far be it for a student who doesn't understand the material that she will be tested and graded on, to interrupt an almighty lecturer for momentary clarification of an essential concept. Just to elevate my blood pressure, I have a class with an extremely ethnocentric professor. He is unwilling to tolerate diversity, the ideal around which this university -- supposedly -- orbits. If you express viewpoints that don't conform to his own myopic ones, he makes you feel like your head is one big giant zit, and your brain is a bubbling sack of pus within. I have another professor who speaks as though her students all have PhDs. She sneers condescendingly when you ask her to define the foreign words that she uses regularly in her monotonous lectures. And she enjoys making you keep your hand in the air for a really long time before she calls on you. Good thing you don't have to raise your hand to go to the bathroom in college, otherwise we'd have a serious custodial problem. All this professor cares about is her research, and about making you memorize it, even though no publisher in the United States sees fit to print it. The concept of tenure is an awesome barrier to effective teaching. Little known tidbit: teachers cannot receive the Lindback Teaching Award in the same year they are being considered for tenure. The University assumes -- and by this rule, practically guarantees -- that professors cannot be good researchers and good teachers at the same time. Far be it for them to try . . . Less prestigious institutions are actually doing their students a favor by reducing competition, thereby allowing professors to focus on what should be their primary purpose. I have a friend who transferred here from a small liberal arts college where, she tells me, her professors were among her friends. The concept is mind-boggling. The only social interaction for students and teachers at Penn is "Take a Professor to Lunch Week." But for the last three years it has fallen during Ramadan, the month that I'm fasting from sunrise to sunset. Yes, my complaining will never end. I remember that in my freshman year, a professor was trying to force me to take a final exam on my most important religious holiday -- so much for diversity. I tried for a month to speak with Sheldon Hackney about this problem. He was always out, unavailable, in a meeting. Too busy to speak to the students without whom he wouldn't have a job. But of course, in his public rhetoric, you would never guess it. I bet when he's using our tuition money to entertain Mr. and Mrs. Revlon, he fascinates them with his standard, memorized anecdotes about his heart-to-hearts with his precious students who come to him for paternal guidance. Another example of why I don't love Penn: Last week I informed a professor -- who takes attendance -- that I would be missing class to attend Steve Ochs' memorial service. He replied, "That's your private business. It's not an excused absence." All this results in apathy. Office hours are an informal time for students to ask questions, get help or get to know their professors personally. Most of us don't take advantage of this opportunity to increase communication. Personally, I'm way too intimidated to go in without a specific agenda, and I quietly exit when I'm finished. When a professor seems impatient or harried, I'm hard pressed to make small talk about how the Flyers are doing. Remarkably, I have forged a bond with one of my TAs this semester. Quite accidentally we discovered a common interest: "All My Children." He thinks Palmer killed Will. I think it may have been Steven, to protect Dixie. How the heck are you supposed to get into graduate school when the only soul in the administration who knows you well enough to write you a recommendation is the person in the library that you always complain to about the broken Xerox-card machines? The administration blames students for not taking advantage of existing opportunities, and for exhibiting overall apathy. Well, why should we care about this university, when the signals it sends us -- behind a politically correct smokescreen -- are crystal clear. Reshma Memon Yaqub is a senior Political Science major from Potomac, Maryland. Text, Translation and Commentary appears alternate Wednesdays.
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