The Annoying Habits of College Professors: A Long-Overdue Reassessment

Luis Martínez-Fernández
Fri, 03 Mar 2023 21:00:00 -0800
Opinion

Joe E. Moore. If you don't recognize the name, it's fine; there is no reason why you should.

I met Joe, his work rather, in a most serendipitous manner. I was in one of those Washington, D.C., conference hotels relaxing inside a courtesy lounge stocked with refreshments and snacks (yes, those shiny green apples and macadamia nut cookies).
Updated: Sat Mar 04, 2023

Joe E. Moore. If you don't recognize the name, it's fine; there is no reason why you should.

I met Joe, his work rather, in a most serendipitous manner. I was in one of those Washington, D.C., conference hotels relaxing inside a courtesy lounge stocked with refreshments and snacks (yes, those shiny green apples and macadamia nut cookies).

The lounge had shelves full of bound journals (meant for decoration, not reading). I pulled one volume out, about four inches thick, green leather-bound, with stamped gold lettering that read: "The Journal of Abnormal Psychology Volume XXX 1935-1936." Founded in 1906, the journal is still being published by the American Psychological Association.

I thumbed through the volume and found an article that caught my attention, "The Annoying Habits of College Professors," by Joe E. Moore, professor of Psychology at North Carolina State College, since renamed North Carolina State University.

Professor Moore instructed 123 psychology students to carefully observe their professors for "any mannerisms or habits that annoy you." He suggested six classifications: facial, language, posture, movement of limbs, attention, dress and personal appearance.

I found Moore's study results amusing. Keep in mind that it was conducted almost 90 years ago. His article lists the 25 most annoying habits as reported by his students. At the top of the list stands "rambling in lectures," with 76 instances, followed by "twisting mouth into odd shapes" (63), "frowning" (55), "playing or tinkering with objects (51) and "cocking head" (50). Other top-25 annoyances include: "Pulling ear, nose, or lips" — their own, I assume — "wise cracking" and "odd color combinations in clothing."

Moore paid special attention to professors' "pet expressions," which he concluded "are of very questionable value in college teaching judging from the extent they annoy students." I got a kick out of some of them: "Ain't that right, pal?" "In the final analysis," "Speck" (instead of inspect), "Interestingly enough," and "I was raised on a farm."

ANNOYING HABITS OF COLLEGE PROFESSORS (88 YEARS LATER)

It's been several years since my chance encounter with professor Moore's study. I took pictures of the article and filed it for future use, thinking that it would be fun to replicate his study. I finally found the time to do it. With the assistance of a graduate student, I surveyed a sampling of undergraduates using the same instructions and questions Moore used in 1935.

This is what we found. Curiously, "rambling" remains as top professorial annoyance. This seems to be a constant across generations of faculty. In 1951, a University of Detroit professor identified the seven deadly sins of teaching; digression was one of them. Another student of teaching recognized four types of "bad teacher types," including the "Wanderer." I will confess, and some of my students attest to it in course evaluations, that I am often guilty of the sin of digression and belong among the wanderers.

The students we surveyed had a modernized list of faculty annoyances. "Inconsistent and slow grading," came in as number two, followed by "Reading off PowerPoint" and "Not answering emails," tied for the third spot. Curiously, our survey included echoes of the 1930s study: "cocking head" and "frowning."

Other tech-related annoyances include "overusing videos," "online module has no information," "not posting lecture PowerPoints to Canvas" and "forced interaction on Zoom" (not sure what that means).

As was the case among professor Moore's students, their contemporary counterparts find annoyance in how professors speak and what they say. Responses include "talking too much" and "talking too little"; "talking too loud," "speaking quietly," "mumbling" and "talking with mouth full"; "saying 'perrrfecttt' after everything" and "saying 'um,' 'uh,' and 'like.'' They also complained of "not making jokes" or telling "unfunny jokes."

There is one category of annoyance absent during professor Moore's time but seemingly prevalent today: complaints about assignments and grading. This is some of what we found: "paper assignments," "assignments too long," "having few assignments" and "random pop quizzes"; "not rounding up grade percentages" and "no extra credit."

Who knows how long universities as we know them will survive. In my most pessimistic moments, I foresee artificial intelligence universities; chatbot faculty teaching chatbot students. Nobody left to annoy anybody else. In the meantime, I will continue to annoy and be annoyed by my students.

Luis Martinez-Fernandez is the author of "When the World Turned Upside Down: Politics, Culture, and the Unimaginable Evenest of 2019-2022," a collection of his syndicated columns. Andrew Kishuni provided research support for this column. To find out more about Luis Martinez-Fernandez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www. creators.com.