Another Clueless Academic

So, uh... Do you think she just forgot her four years as an undergrad?

PHOENIX, Arizona (AP) -- As a professor at Northern Arizona University, Cathy Small was baffled by undergraduates. They seemed less engaged, less likely to do assigned reading and more likely to ask questions like "Do you want it double-spaced?"

So she decided to study them as anthropologists research any foreign culture -- she lived among them.

After moving into a dorm, eating cafeteria food and struggling with a five-course schedule, the 50-something Small said she empathized with students who struggle to balance chaotic class and work schedules.

"I'm trying to get really to what student culture is doing and tailor my teaching," said Small, who wrote a book on her research under the pseudonym Rebekah Nathan called "My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student."

Small took a sabbatical and spent the 2002-2003 school year conducting her research. With approval from the university's research board, she used her high school transcript to get admitted and moved into a dorm -- though she did forgo the roommate experience by getting a single room.

And the money shot?

Her surveys also found that only about a third of what students were talking and thinking about outside of class was based on their course work.

What a discovery! Because when I was out of class back when I was a student, about ninety-five percent of what I had to talk about revolved directly around what I was studying. And now that I have a job, about eighty-eight percent of what I talk about outside of work directly pertains to work.

Seriously. I always knew that a lot of professors were clueless, but this really takes the cake.