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Final exam

My first semester of teaching at the University of Illinois was terrible.  That is, the university was fine; I was terrible.  I taught two sections of American literature since 1914—a pretty easy assignment to start out with—and botched them both.  It was my first semester as a real live assistant professor, and I was thoroughly uncomfortable with being called “Professor Bérubé,” so I taught frenetically and obliviously.  But that wasn’t the half of it: our entire household was frazzled.  We only had Nick then (he was three and a half; Jamie was born two years later), but we couldn’t afford full-time day care at $90 a week (this was before I’d pegged my salary to David Horowitz’s, of course), so we signed Nick up for half-day care in the afternoons.  Janet and I both taught in the mornings (MWF), but we took what we could get, and nobody was offering half-day care in the mornings.  So Janet taught from 9 to 9:50 a.m. and then again at 11; I taught from 10 to 10:50 and then again at 12.  Day care began at 1 pm.  I would take a Champaign city bus to campus with Nick, getting to a stop four blocks north of the English Building at 9:47, walk Nick to the building, meet Janet in the hall, and hand off Nick with three or four minutes to spare; at a few minutes to 11, Janet would pass him back to me; he and I would grab lunch while Janet taught, and then I’d toss him back to Janet, and she would take him to day care.

Nick didn’t think much of this arrangement, either.  When he got to day care, the first item on the agenda was an hour-long “nap.” Nick didn’t take naps.  I leave Nick’s experience of day care to your imagination.

To make matters worse, Nick was sick all semester long.  This was 1989, the very last year before the industrialized world developed nebulized steroids for asthmatics (Vanceril, for those of you in the know), and Nick had one bronchial event after another.  And they still permitted leaf-burning in Champaign-Urbana in 1989, which meant that for weeks at a time during October and November, Nick left the house at his peril.

So we were all anxious and sleep-deprived and generally scrambled.  I’d often finish up my class preps at 2 am, give Nick his overnight meds (no point going to bed at 12 or 1 when you had to do 2 am meds, now), then teach the next morning on some mixture of caffeine and adrenaline.  It didn’t work.  I can still remember my course evaluations that term—a lousy 3.9 out of 5 in one section, and an abysmal 3.6 in the other.  (My average over twelve years at Illinois wound up at 4.45, pretty good but not great.  But you can get some sense of what a 3.6 means.)

And then came the final exam.  At last!  I’d already turned in the grades for the 10 am section, and now I would return my 12 pm section’s final papers, read their exams that night and the next day, and I’d be done, done, done.  The exam was at 7 pm, and I spent the afternoon in my office, grading the last eight or nine papers I’d be returning that evening.

Now, a word about my office.  (It’s not absolutely critical to the story, but it’ll help to set the scene.) At the time, the enormous, rambling old English Building was in the middle of a long-term renovation, and though I had a huge corner office on the third floor (which I “shared” with someone who never used it, because she was the associate head and had an administrative office on the second floor), it was a huge corner office in the unrenovated part of the building.  The staircase on my end of the building went down only to the second floor; below that there was nothing but a dark airshaft, at the bottom of which, I was fond of saying, there was surely a heap of gasoline-soaked rags and a few smoldering cigarette butts.  On the second floor, there were the remains of a basketball court (the building had once been a gymnasium, and its central atrium was once a swimming pool); this had long since been cubicled and subdivided into graduate teaching assistant “offices.”

At 6:30 or so I finished up my grading, left my office, went to the men’s room (the nearest one was down that flight of unrenovated stairs, across from the basketball court), chatted for a few moments with one of the graduate students, came back upstairs, and . . . found that I had somehow locked my door behind me.  With my keys, and my graded papers, and all my final exams on the other side of the door.

Oy, I said to myself, now I have to go and get the master key from the secretaries . . . oh my god, there are no secretaries!  It’s a quarter to seven.  The #@%&ing department office is closed. I began to think of some way I could go in through my window, but this would involve climbing outside through the second-floor TA offices, then using my super spider powers to scamper across the front of the building and up one flight.  It didn’t seem likely.

Panicking, I ran around on the second floor, wondering if perhaps I could break into the department office instead and grab myself that master key.  Now, there’s a memorable way to start your career!  And just when I was rattling the office door to see if it would be worth trying the old credit-card shimmy, who should come walking down the hall but the Department Head Himself!

Ahem.  As I explained to this curious and patient man that I was not in fact a criminal but merely a kolossal klutz, I noted that it was now five minutes to seven and that I would truly, truly appreciate it if he would be so kind as to open the office, find a master key in the secretaries’ supply cabinets, and allow me to get back into my office and give my final.

He found the whole thing rather amusing.  And yes, he got the master key for me.

So, for all of you who are either giving or taking finals this week, best of luck.  Just remember to keep your office keys in your pockets at all times.

Posted by on 05/05 at 01:46 PM

  1. Yes, yes. This reminds me of my current graduate ta office which looks a lot nicer than it actually is.  Tucked away in the corner of the (obviously windowless) basement of a classic piece of 1960s institutional architecture, students can oft be heard saying (when they can actually find the offices), “Ugh, you have to, like, work here?” In the middle of the winter the old TA offices are especially depressing when you come in at 7 am (in the dark), plan a lecture (in the windowless basement), teach an 8:30 class in a windowless basement classroom with poor lighting (since we’re at the bottom of the scheduling foodchain), then spend the rest of the day reading in the still windowless office, only to return home at 6 or 7pm, in the dark. 

    From your post I take it that Illini TA’s at least have windows. Ahh luxury! : )

    Posted by Jon S.  on  05/05  at  03:11 PM

  2. Something remotely like that’s happened to me, but I’ve repressed it. The important thing, now that we’re on the other side of the proctoring table, is to remember that the students are going thru nightmares just as bad. When I got 3 frantic voicemail messages from the woman who showed up 6 hours late for my first exam this week (just plain read the schedule wrong), I could only recall my own experience of doing that, and having to haul the professor out of committee meeting to give me the test (I’m sure he wasn’t brokenhearted). And there’s one or two every semester.

    Posted by Mark Scroggins  on  05/05  at  03:33 PM

  3. Reminds me of the time I locked myself out of my office. I work in a legal office in a building that’s less than three years old. I came in one Sat. morning to catch up on some work. The only person around was the rent-a-cop who works security. You sign in, use a key to open the outer door, then either use the key or the electronic swipe card to open the inner door. I completed my work and went out the inner door. I then realized I left the card in my office. No problem, just use the key, right? Well, I’m as big a klutz (maybe bigger) as Michael, and somehow managed to bend my key in the lock, but not open the door. Now I’m in melt down mode, but realize I can reach, through the secretary’s sliding glass window, the button she uses to “buzz-in” visitors. Except I hit the panic button she can use to summon security (we do criminal defense). Needless to say, I hit the button again when the door doesn’t open, then realize I had hit the wrong button. I, with great athletic skill, crawl through the window, across the secretary’s desk, get in, retrieve my card, and start to exit. I meet the rent-a-cop, who informs me the silent alarm had sounded and the local police had been notified. And that I had to pay $25 for a new key. I also had visions of some surly officer hauling my butt down to the hoosegow (maybe working me over for good measure). Fortunatly, I was let go with a stern warning to be more careful. A memorable Sat. morning!

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  03:40 PM

  4. Thanks.  Just realized that I have no idea where I last put the grade sheets.  Gotta stop reading blog entries and get back to grading…

    Posted by DocMara  on  05/05  at  03:49 PM

  5. Once more with empathy: I arrived early for a job interview and asked the receptionist for the key to the men’s lavatory. As a result of careless clumsiness, the key plopped into the toilette and slid into the shute before I even had a chance to use the facilities. The job I held at the time had a very dressed-down atmosphere, so I had to change into jacket and tie before the interview, which was scheduled late in the day. Remembering with relief that I had a coat hanger in my bag, I decided to fish for the key. The hanger got caught in the toilette like a lure on a log. I had no choice but to tell the receptionist, who seemed very cool about the whole incident. She said they’d lost more than one key that way, and she’d call the building’s maintenance office to take care of it. One of the interviewer’s first questions was of the standard name-your-greatest-strength variety, which he quickly followed with, “And don’t tell me problem-solving skills. I know what happened in the men’s room.” My response--"I know when to give up"--made him laugh. Still didn’t get the job, though.

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  04:11 PM

  6. God, just the other day I went to ask the dept.secretary for the master key at around 2:15, then again around 4:00 PM. She’s far to nice to allow her facial expressions to reveal what she surely must have been thinking.

    Posted by djw  on  05/05  at  04:38 PM

  7. After ten years of graduate studenting and adjuncting and three years of instructing, I will finally be professing this fall--which means I will have my own office, with a window *and* a door.  Unfortunately the building was originally designed for a university in Arizona, which means it has flat roofs which leak when it rains, which it will sometimes do in Illinois.  I will thus be issued my very own buckets along with my fabulous all-to-myself, shut-the-door, look-out-the-window office.  It’s great to know that liberal indoctrination comes with so many perks.  Free buckets, and everything!

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  05:24 PM

  8. I’m not giving a final, I’m showing movies movies movies. Hey they like the William Wyler *Wuthering Heights*.

    Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights
    Has no green decapitable knights,
    Banshees, Fetches, Barrow wights,
    Still it’s enough to give us frights.

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  05:30 PM

  9. Great story, Michael.

    I’ve noticed a slight tendency in the public mind, based perhaps on stories such as this, to associate people who work as academic instructors with a certain degree of spaciness, of not being entirely, shall we say, “present-minded.” It’s almost as if we’re witnessing an emergent stereotype, of the - what shall we call it? - “non-present-minded instructor.” It’s too bad Allen Dundes has deceded, because limning this emergent stereotype would I think be a fine project for some student of folklore. Maybe I’ll see if I still have Lydia Fish’s phone number somewhere.

    Posted by Chris Clarke  on  05/05  at  05:41 PM

  10. This is both “key” and “school” related.
    Dateline: Berkeley, mid-1980’s. I had a first date with a guy I’d been pining over for months. It was a lunch date, but it was all the way over in San Francisco where he lived.

    It was a waste of time even showing up for classes that day since my mind was somewhere else completely. But after my last class at high noon, I went home as fast as I could trying not to work up a sweat cuz there would be no time to shower- kind of a walk/jog thing that I know looked very odd to passersby.

    I got home only to find out I’d locked myself out. Not only was I locked out, but the clock was ticking. Time was running out for me to make it through traffic all the way to my big rendez vous in SF. (This was way before cel phones, mind you, so there was no way to contact him. And even if I could have used a neighbor’s phone, I didn’t have his phone number on my person).  Building manager: not home. Asst. Bldg. manager: not home either. Major, major, major crisis.

    Fortunately, my upstairs neighbor was home. He was a recent graduate and within a few years of my age (therefore, “cool"), and as far as neighbors go, we knew eachother fairly well. With his help, I climbed from his balcony down to my balcony beneath, (I knew my balcony door was unlocked). This was no easy feat, and we are talking 4 stories high here. But I was willing to risk life and limb for this hot date. (Yeah, I was stupid).

    So, being the fine actress that I am, I arrived to the date with my dream guy calm, cool, and collected. Looking back, was he worth the risk and trouble? Um...no. And the neighbors in my building had fun teasing me for at least a week afterwards cuz upstairs guy had spilled the beans!

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  05:57 PM

  11. I’m pretty sure I took your English class that semester—that’s the one where we started with Tarzan and went through to Invisible Man, right?  I gave you a good evaluation, as I recall!

    I remember that we had a paper that we had to turn in by a certain day, and I stayed up the whole night before writing it.  I finished at about 7 in the morning.  Rather than wait for the English building to open up to hand it in, I thought I’d get some sleep and turn it in later.  Unfortunately, I woke up at about 5:30, after the English building closed.  I called you in a panic and left a contrite message.  (That’s why I think it was the fall semester of ‘89; I’ve retained the image of me rampaging up the stairs of the creaky old house on Stoughton I lived in that year).

    You were very nice about it and let me turn in the paper late without penalty.  Now I guess I understand why you were so empathetic.

    Posted by honestpartisan  on  05/05  at  06:53 PM

  12. Can’t remember losing keys during finals week, but did lose sanity often. Not so easy to find as keys.

    Posted by The Heretik  on  05/05  at  07:23 PM

  13. Thanks for writing in, honestpartisan!  You were indeed in that class—my records tell me you wrote one paper on My Antonia and the other on Invisible Man—and thanks for the evaluation, too.  That year I needed all the encouragement I could get.  I also seem to recall that at one point in our discussions of IM, you asked a question in class about the limits of “political” criticism, and referenced a review of Ghostbusters which dismissed the movie as a Reaganite fantasy on the basis of its portrait of the rabid EPA official.  Was that you?

    Posted by Michael  on  05/05  at  07:42 PM

  14. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was me—I remember the Imvisible Man paper, and I think the My Antonia paper had some Frederick Jackson Turner references, maybe?  And the Ghostbusters reference goes over well in academia every time.  (I remember feeling crestfallen as a young politically left kid who liked the movie, then reading the review in the Village Voice condemning it as conservative.)

    Posted by honestpartisan  on  05/05  at  07:59 PM

  15. Ah.  One of the reasons I remember your comment fifteen years later is that at the time, I didn’t quite understand it:  I was thinking, you’re telling me that the Village Voice condemned Ghostbusters?  What, do they have something against Zool, or poltergeists, or Harold Ramis?  Then I saw the film again a few years later and realized that I’d completely overlooked the rabid EPA guy.  That character is indeed extremely strange—especially when you recall that the film was made during the Gorsuch/Lavelle era at the EPA, not exactly a high-water mark of environmental activism at the federal level—but even still, that review strikes me as a tad reductive, and your question still strikes me as a good one.

    Posted by Michael  on  05/05  at  08:11 PM

  16. The office building Michael describes was pretty bad in places, nice as it may look from the outside in the Spring--especially on postcards. (Michael, btw, is not being merely descriptive; it is officially, if unimaginatively, known as the “English Building.")

    AS a TA, I shared an office with 5 or 6 other TA’s.  We had one mac, which was old even by 1998 standards, and the wall between our office and the hallway didn’t even go all the way to the ceiling.  I had become so resigned to the dismal office conditions that I didn’t even bother to contact maintenance when the bare bulb hanging, M*A*S*H-like, over my grey metal desk burned out.  One day, after a half-semester or so, it just came on again.  Turns out, Jack Stillinger (of Norton fame), who, after weeks of walking by my office and exchanging kind greetings, couldn’t take it anymore and changed my bulb for me when I wasn’t around.

    If he had had the time, I’m sure he would have changed many more bulbs in that building.  There were corners of that place that would have given Grandpa Munster the willies.

    Ah, memories.

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  09:20 PM

  17. I don’t think I ever turned in a late paper, although I do remember turning in a paper at the beginning of class and then doing an about-face due to symptoms that felt remarkably like spinal meningitis (this, during yet another meningitis epidemic in C-U). Turned out I just had the flu. I’m sure the lecture that day was cool, though. . . perhaps even on par with the “5 Levels of Drumming Performance” lecture.

    By the way, the Nastybake CD rocks in its own way.

    Posted by Paul  on  05/05  at  09:25 PM

  18. How is 4.45 out of 5 for student evaluations just pretty good.  Sound great to me.  Also, 3.9 and 3.6 are hardly absymal.  Sounds a bit to rigorous.

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  10:48 PM

  19. Yeah, I mean, what happened to the gentleman’s 3.4? Things just ain’t what they used to be.

    Posted by Lee  on  05/05  at  11:01 PM

  20. Lance, Paul, thanks for the memories.  As I recall, Paul, there was every good reason to take meningitis scares seriously at UIUC, and I know (or at least I like to think) that when students turn in a paper and then flee, it’s always medical, never personal.  Lance, you don’t know the half of it.  After the building was renovated in 1991, at least you graduate students had light bulbs!  Back in 1989 you had to bring your own candles with you to your “office,” and hope that you had enough tallow to see you through the night.  And you tell that to the kids today and they won’t believe you.

    Jacob, 4.45 was “pretty good” as a relative measure—compared to the rest of my cohort—but that’s not just my subjective impression.  Every semester, the Daily Illini (the student paper) published what they called “An Incomplete List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent By Their Students,” and I made the list every other semester.  Basically, you needed 4.6 or better to appear on that list, and I managed it only half the time, whereas about twelve to fifteen of my colleagues in the English department (including my wife) cleared the bar with room to spare every single semester.  Those people were (and are) truly extraordinary teachers; I saw them in action, and they weren’t just handing out A’s like gumdrops.  I was (and am) somewhere in the next tier or two.

    Posted by Michael  on  05/05  at  11:27 PM

  21. I kind of wish I’d seen the old English Building from how you’re describing it, I’ve only seen it in its post-2000 state.

    Posted by Vivek  on  05/05  at  11:28 PM

  22. Hmm, are you still allowed to use steroids if your kid has asthma, or that going to get him suspended from his T-ball league?

    Posted by Tim Horrigan  on  05/05  at  11:34 PM

  23. I have many fond memories of that English building (I spent way too much time in that basement computer lab), though I luckily did not have an office there (being an undergrad and all).  I don’t have too many complaints about my office situation now.  We have three grad students per small office, but this past semester, one of my office mates was in England and the other was always in the library when she was on campus.  So, for the most part, I had the office to myself this semester.  Unfortunately, that will probably change in the fall.

    I agree with Jacob--I wouldn’t call 3.6 abysmal.  I had much worse TAs and professors than you at Illinois, though, admittedly, you were well into your 4.45 years by the time I took a class from you (spring of ‘99 I think).

    Posted by  on  05/05  at  11:37 PM

  24. This story is clearly all lies, because according to David Horowitz, you only work 6 hours a week.

    Posted by Suzanne  on  05/06  at  09:30 AM

  25. Finals?  I have 5 weeks left!

    Posted by  on  05/06  at  10:10 AM

  26. What, do they have something against Zool, or poltergeists, or Harold Ramis?

    That’s “Zuul,” as any student of Sumerian could tell you, Professor.

    Alas, that 4.45 average seems more plausible now.

    Posted by  on  05/06  at  10:18 AM

  27. I am once removed from the person who told me this story, and he was in the auditorium in which it took place, so I have a confidence rating of over 50% that this isn’t an urban legend. If it is, it’s still a great story, and I’ll cling to the illusion of its historical accuracy.

    My friend was taking a 3 hr. blue book final at UCSD (I believe it was a history class, but I can’t be absolutely sure). He finished his at around the 1:45 mark, brought it up to the front, put it on the stack of 4 or 5 that were done, and got into a conversation with the professor, with whom he’d become friends.

    As the next hour and fifteen minutes went by, more and more of the students came up, put their blue books on the stack, and left the auditorium. With five minutes left in the three hour period, the professor called out to the remaining ten or so students, “FIVE MINUTES!” After five minutes of scrambling pencils, he called out, “OKAY EVERYONE, PENCILS DOWN!” After 30 seconds more of furious sentence-conclusions and deep sighs, he called out, “OKAY, ANYONE WHO’S STILL WRITING IN 5 SECONDS GETS AN F!” Almost everyone put their pencils down, except for one student who continued speed writing, seemingly oblivious to the warning.

    “HEY! YOU! STOP WRITING! NOW!” No response. “OKAY FORGET IT! DON’T EVEN BOTHER FINISHING! I’M NOT TAKING YOUR PAPER!” Still no acknowledgement from the student that he was being disqualified.

    After three or four minutes more, the student comes down to the front with his blue book, where my friend and the professor were still chatting (in fact I think they were chatting about what the hell this guy thought he was doing). As he walks up to the desk, the professor says, “No, forget it, I told you I’m not accepting your test, that’s it. Goodbye.”

    The student says, “Do you know who I am?!”

    The professor says, “No! And I don’t care! I’m not accepting your test!”

    The student says, “Good.” He then inserts the blue book into the middle of the stack, pushes the whole stack over so that it scatters across the floor, and runs like hell.

    Good luck to all, givers and takers, on your finals.

    Posted by chiggins  on  05/06  at  11:13 AM

  28. That’s “Zuul,” as any student of Sumerian could tell you, Professor.

    Thanks!  I was absent the day we did Sumerian in high school.

    Posted by Michael  on  05/06  at  12:01 PM

  29. Chiggins,

    I’ve heard that one before.  It’s an urban legend, or a really good idea that’s been used more than once. . . .

    Posted by Jonathan  on  05/06  at  06:15 PM

  30. I made myself a memorable finals moment this past year:

    Our 20th C. lit class firs semester this year had one of the last scheduled finals for the university.  I had just gotten my tonsils out three days before, couldn’t talk yet, and was at a coffee shop grading; grades were due later that afternoon.  I coughed and blew open a stitch.  It was a bloody mess --I must have looked like I had consumption.  I had to get to the doc and have my throat cauterized.  Came home to a message from the professors I was TA’ing for demanding the grades, and there was nothing I could say (I couldn’t speak anyway).

    Posted by Joley  on  05/07  at  05:33 PM

  31. Michael - I had your Postmodern Lit class in 90 or 91 and I seem to recall that everyone in the class called you Michael.

    But I have a friend who teaches in Minnesota and hates it when people call her by her first name (apparently she thinks it’s a sign of disrespect).  Commuter campus though, for what it’s worth.

    Posted by  on  05/08  at  04:19 PM

  32. If you’re Michael Gershbein, hi! --it was spring 1991, and what a class that was.  A large honors seminar (20) on postmodernism and American fiction, chock full of some of the best students at Illinois (and I’m not just saying that, either).  It was pretty informal, and I was still under thirty, so I’m not surprised to hear that everyone called me Michael.  I don’t think I became “Mister” or “Professor” for another five or six years, in fact (and I will not tolerate “Doctor").  But I know that many women in academe do see first-name basis as a sign of disrespect from students, whether they’re at commuter campuses or not.  The young male assistant professor might think it’s cool, whereas the young female assistant professor might think it’s infantilizing.

    Thanks for stopping by--

    Posted by Michael  on  05/08  at  04:58 PM

  33. Jeez, Michael, what a memory!  That was an awesome class, and one of the few in college that really changed my thought processes.  I took a 20th Century lit class the following semester and it was literally all white male authors (some dead) and incredibly uninteresting.  I actually complained about the reading list to the professor.  Also, Pale Fire was one of the best things I read in college.  Anyway, I enjoy your blog, and Horowitz bashing is always good fun.  Mike

    Posted by  on  05/08  at  09:58 PM

  34. Jonathan,

    I had a feeling, and you confirmed it. I called my friend, who has since joined the professorial ranksm, this weekend to ask him what professor and what class it was. It went something like this:

    “I don’t recall saying I was actually there, did I?”

    “Oh, you most certainly did, in fact you added bits of detail that set the story in a concrete foundation. I’m pretty sure you told me the name of the professor and mentioned what it was you were chatting about when the exam was over.”

    “Oh. Were we drinking?”

    “Youbetcherass.”

    “Yeah. I made that up, pretty good story though wasn’t it?”

    Now I have to ask him about the two guys in the Montana bar and the shirt. God, I hope that one’s true. Apologies for the snope.

    Posted by chiggins  on  05/09  at  11:12 AM

  35. Too bad I just missed your teaching debut - I’m an 88 grad of the Big U of I (English/History majors); I can vouch for the rambling and spooky quality of the “old” side of the English building. I remember my pre-1800 Brit Lit class taught in a room with bolted desks and chairs and the most droning professor of all time.

    As to the quality of U.of I English honors students, I took 5 or 6 honors seminar, starting my sophomore year, and I have to agree that they tended to attract a lively and intellectually curious crowd. But then, I was an English major geek!

    Posted by  on  05/09  at  09:40 PM

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