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Sometimes I swear that I’m in the whitest degree at my university. All of the faculty are old, lanky men and women who read science publications *for fun* and speak excitedly about *conferences* and things of that nature. They care a lot about the environment, and all of them are humongous dorks, so those two things bring me a little closer to them. Here’s some of the standout faculty members (Unnamed of course):

The nervous lecturer who somehow works himself up into blushing after every third sentence. He buttons his shirts and pants uncomfortably tight, and it seems like he’s always losing blood flow because of it. His saving grace as a professor is that when he gets on a topic he’s passionate about-- Rivers, or grasses, or fish-- He can talk for hours. I know for a fact he’s been lecturing for some time, so I don’t know how he still gets so nervous.

There’s also the Jewish Cowboy who’s warmer than the rest of the faculty, which I guess comes with life-long experience working with classes full of monkeys (University students). His drawl brings an unintentional kinda ignorance to his tone, like when he says the words “Women,” or “People of color.” Today he corrected a student from Spain on the pronunciation of a town in Spain. “Alhambra” she said with perfect intonation (The silent “h,” the rolling “r”). “Right,” he says, “Allhambruh.” He pronounced it like the meat you put on a sandwich and the class stifled laughter. I didn’t stifle mine too well…

Probably my favorite professor is the DJ who practiced Muay Thai in Southeast Asia for years (Like that top comment demanded) before becoming a DJ and then somehow becoming a professor. I spent a week in the woods with him and a small cohort, per a field course, and half of it was him teaching us martial arts moves. The other half was him climbing on rocks and trees like a big, giddy, child. He also did an impromptu car-DJ session for us on the four-hour drive back to campus, so that was fun.

It’s a weird little department. Despite being full of ham-sandwich white people, it has plenty of character (Although a degree studying the world could benefit from a little more diversity…). Geography attracts strange folks, I guess. Lots of undiagnosed issues and obscenely specific obsessions. It’s funny like that.