Columbia Prof strips in class

Excessive knowledge can turn someone into this.


http://news.yahoo.com/columbia-prof-strips-shows-9-11-tape-during-021232869.html

NEW YORK (AP) — Columbia University says it’s reviewing a science class in which a professor stripped to his underwear and showed 9/11 video footage during a lecture on quantum mechanics.

The Frontiers of Science class on Monday morning with Professor Emlyn Hughes also included two other participants dressed in black, one of whom used a sword to destroy a stuffed animal.

Video of the event was posted to Bwog, the online home of Columbia’s monthly undergraduate magazine.

It starts with the professor stripping with his back to the students as music plays and an image of a skull is projected on a screen. Later, two stuffed animals are placed on stools, one of which is stabbed by a person with a sword. In the background, a video shows the fall of the World Trade Center and an image of Osama bin Laden.

A female student watching Hughes could be heard repeating, “What is happening?” as the performance went on.

It ended with the professor returning to the stage.

“In order to learn quantum mechanics, you have to strip to your raw, erase all the garbage from your brain and start over again,” Hughes said.

The professor didn’t respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.

In a statement, the university said, “Universities are committed to maintaining a climate of academic freedom, in which the faculty members are given the widest possible latitude in their teaching and scholarship. However, the freedoms traditionally accorded the faculty carry corresponding responsibilities.”

It added, “While one must exercise caution in judging excerpts from a lecture or short presentations from an entire course outside of their full context, the appropriate academic administrators are currently reviewing the facts of this particular presentation in quantum mechanics.”

He seems to take it very seriously. Probably an Aspie.

If I was in that class, I would have run the hell out of there. Who knows, one day a Professor might snap and unload multiple shots at students in a lecture hall. And I’ve been in that hall at Columbia and it’s huge.

Yeah, same here, I saw the video and I thought to myself that I would have gotten the hell out of there. Looked seriously creepy with that skull head on the projector. Even though I knew the story, I kept thinking to myself that he was going to pull out a shotgun out of that black bag he kept reaching in for.

At one point in the video, a girl goes “Does he have a gun?” before someone corrects her and says he doesn’t. But I was thinking from the start, the situation was pretty freaking sketchy and it was a crowded lecture hall. I’da packed my sh*t and walked out as soon as that nutjob showed up and started getting into his routine.

The hillarious part, is I was thinking to myself how him and his friends probably brainstormed this late at night on a whim thinking it would be epically funny, only to show up and realize halfway through the dissonance between their brainstorm of it and the awkwardness of the presentation in reality.

^ Yep, on the same page as you guys on this one. At the very least I’d have done a quick recon and figured out where the nearest fat kid was I could position myself behind.

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Yeah, can just imagine the discussion: “Teddy bears! We NEED teddy bears! And SWORDS! Two teddy bears and swords to cut their heads off with. That’ll be awesome! (high fives all around!!!)”.

was that a freshman class? had to be right?

Such a dissapointment opening this thread. The title made me believe it was a chick from Columbia.

Didn’t bchadwick teach a class at Columbia?

Yeah, I think it was some 1 day science class (Quantum Mechanices explained in an hour) for art majors or something.