By Jens Alan Dana
Maybe it was the post-lunch slump, or the pre-supper trance, but whatever the reason, I couldn't focus on Professor Lynn Scoresby's lecture.
Occasionally, I jotted down new vocabulary words like neonate, cohort and epiphyses. They were words I would need to know for the test, but would soon forget.
Scoresby walked down the aisle toward the chalkboard pontificating the social differences between U.S. citizens and Latin American countries. That's when it happened.
'In Latin America, they coexist with nature,' he said. 'But us Americans, we try to control it. We see a river and what do we say? 'DAM THAT SUCKAR!''
His reverberating voice jolted me out of my slump, along with half of the other students. The class laughed a few moments, and Scoresby continued with the lecture as though nothing happened. I scrambled for my Pilot G-2 and jotted down the moment before it could escape my short-term memory. Even after two and a half years, I can still remember the experience, although I can't remember anything else from that lecture.
It comes as no surprise students only remember about 10 percent of what they hear in lectures. Ask any student to recite the 10 principles of economics in numerical order two years after taking the class (provided it isn't his major) and he probably can't. But ask him if he remembers some outrageous and down-right-hilarious thing his professors have said and he'll probably respond much differently.
There is no denying students come here to excel academically, but we should still take time to appreciate the antics of BYU's quality faculty members. While taking notes on the course material during this new semester, be sure to collect the golden quotes your professors drop in class. They come in all different shapes and sizes and can be found in any classroom here at BYU.
There's the catch phrase: a little saying the professor has patented. For example, after easy questions on a reading quiz, Frank Judd, a religion professor, says, 'If you got that answer wrong, you should be spiritually spanked.'
There's the one-liner, cram-packed with universally true principles. In the margins next to my notes about logos, ethos, and pathos are the immortal words of professor Jeffery Nielsen: 'When you're married, logic has nothing to do with arguments.'
There's the stunner: quotes that leave you wondering if the professor actually said what he or she did. In the same philosophy class, a student elaborated on the results of some Internet research, and when he finished, Nielsen replied, 'Oh, so you mean to say there's more on the Internet than just porn?'
Sometimes, professors provide personal spiritual insight, in so far as the subject allows. Professor Randy Skinner once jokingly confided in his class, 'Hell is a Stairmaster and a calculus book.'
Then there are the sheer satirical shenanigans that always elicit a roar from the otherwise lethargic student masses. After showing our philosophy class a logically valid, yet wholly untrue, argument, professor Cordell Carter said, 'Lying can be justified. That's the virtue of philosophy.'
Sometimes professors demonstrate their proficiency in the new vernacular. During a lecture on 'The Odyssey,' professor Duckwitz said, 'Odysseus and his men sacked the town, looking for food, wine, women and booty - you know, in the original sense of the word.'
The BYU faculty members have their share of wit, but don't discount the potential of fellow classmates. Our Book of Mormon class digressed from the pertinent subject to the perennial palaver of courtship, and the professor posed the following question to a room full of returned missionaries.
Professor Dennis Largy: 'How do you know you're in love?'
Student: 'She tells you.'
There truly is treasure everywhere.