Professor Forgets that He Cancelled Class

“Eighty percent of success is showing up.”

-Woody Allen

Jake Nash made his regular commute from Lebanon to Hanover early Friday morning. Like all new professors striving for tenure, he liked to hold office hours before and after his 9L, Socy 23: Motivation and Participation. Even though it’s only his first year as a professor, his class was overfilled. After one term with 19 students and a median grade of an A, enrollment exploded.

After thirty minutes in his office, Nash finished grading his class’ only midterm, a 30 question multiple choice test that was eerily similar to the one administered last term, and headed to Thrilsby 213 for class. However, when he got to the classroom, only 2 students greeted him, one of whom was covered in paint and the other wore only an American flag. Both of them were asleep on the floor and none of them were students in his class. He shook it off since students were usually late but after twenty minutes passed he realized that something was amiss. 

He decided to stay in the classroom and try to figure out what had happened while making shadow puppets with the projector. It finally hit him: he had cancelled class. It was the only thing that could explain why no students had come to class on a Friday no different than the one before, when he had well over 25 students in attendance. 

Although he only had a vague memory of several students asking if class would be held this Friday, questions that he thought were strange, he accepted the conclusion and headed back to his office to add animations and sounds to his PowerPoint for Monday. While leaving, he encountered Maria Montgomery ’13. Montgomery, with wrinkled clothes and disheveled hair, quickly explained that she knew her group was presenting today but qualified her tardiness, “my roommate unplugged my alarm clock, painted the windows black and then roofied me so I didn’t wake up.”

Montgomery seemed surprised when she saw that not only were her three group members not in attendance, but there were no students at all. Nash explained that he had cancelled class and told her that her group would give their presentation, entitled “Just Being There”, on Monday before heading back to his office.

Nash was further puzzled when he received some blitzes later that morning apologizing for absence. Some students were stricken with a sore throat, bird flu or spontaneous dental hydroplosion. Josh Johnson ‘11 explained that he “woke up in West Leb and just couldn’t make it back in time.”

Nash felt the need to send a blitz to his class saying, “I'm sorry I forgot to let you all know that I cancelled class. We’ll make it up next week. I hope you all can find some fun things to do this weekend!”