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Subscribe to RSSColumbia 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."
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"quantum mechanics."
I must be an expert at it since I do what the professor did twice a day.
Unless I get the Bajeebees scared out of me. Then, it's three times a day... ;-)
I'm sure he's an expert at quantum mechanics, but for certain flunked theatrics.
Slow news day I guess? Who gives a @!$%#? It was a college class right, so everyone should be over 18 and he had on underwear?
Everybody knows these uber smart dudes are all halfassed autistic and often communicate in unusual ways. This was this guys ill conceived way of telling the class to open their minds.
I hope it worked better on them, because it seems to have had the opposite effect on the public.
The regressive, anti-science, anti-education, anti-art, cave men will be all over this. Get the popcorn ready!
This guy is a loony. There is absolutely no reason to physically show what he was trying to explain. Him saying the below quote completely would have sufficed.
Bet he wishes he can erase that episode from all reality. But don't worry, in other alternate realities, he didn't actually strip.
I'm all for teachers being creative and stepping out of the box to get their students interested, but stepping out in your boxers is a different matter. And the other violent stuff wasn't needed at all. How many students might have had a family member or other loved one killed that day or had other traumatic memories? And stabbing/violent video in front of the class? I don't think that was anywhere near necessary or appropriate, and there really are better ways to teach quantum mechanics. That guy totally jumped the shark on teaching, and he needs to be out of the classroom in my view. That doesn't show thought for anyone and it was not professional behavior.
It was rather stupid to do what he did...with nuts with guns and people getting hurt around our country, and this guy deciding it was okay to do that? I feel for anyone who came to class that day thinking s/he was going to get a class on quantum mechanics and instead shown all that video with no warning, and having people dressed like that with a weapon? The whole thing was just stupid and looked like a cross between a political statement, mental breakdown, and strip show. Really, what did that teach them? I wouldn't want to be in that guy's class again.
it is a good thing this nut does not teach sex education; just imagine what he would come up with.
Creekdog- lmao!
My guess is that he is attempting to teach the class an alternate theory about the collapse of the towers that they could not have fallen straight down. And to do that, the class first had to question everything they had been told.
I find this absolutely unacceptable. Now if the professor were female and hot I would have no complaints...... ;)
Professor Emlyn Hughes was heard to say "I'm not crazy, my mom had me tested."
And all of us sit around and 'wonder' why our colleges are what they are! Here is a guy who is 'obviously smart' when it comes to his topic; but this type of behavior is nut's! So you strip down in a classroom; he's lucky he's not in jail!
Having taken a Quantum Mechanics course, I'm still trying to wrap my brain around how anything the professor did during this "stunt" has anything, whatsoever, to do with quantum mechanics...
WTF?
Bazinga!
Too bad that he learned his performance art techniques from watching Daryl Hannah in "Legal Eagles."
It was met with a loud round of applause until the students noticed the "skid mark" then crickets chirping. GM-B
I bet his students will forever remember that lecture
Well, I suppose he had his students full attention at the start of his next lecture.
I wonder if he had Misfits music playing. (Notice the skull)
GA Pro, Bill, Stonepipe,
I see a lot of people thinking it was so bad for him to be in his boxers in a private room with nothing but college students yet, nobody seems to bat an eyelash when there are thongs walking down a public beach.
Not to mention those "ball bathing" suits the French Canadians wear at the Jersey Shore beaches.
If I wore one of those, I'd stuff a sock in it and have a camera fixed on the faces of people doing a double take.... Then, post it on-line....
I don't need to question what I have been told.
I saw it with my own eyes!!!!
Sounds more like he is a frustrated performance artist. :-)
So colleges can bring in porn stars to teach classes on how to orgasm, but this dude can't strip to his tidy-whiteys to make a point.
And that girl who was exclaiming, "What's happening? What's happening?" I wonder if she says that when she's banging her sixth new guy of the week to prove to everyone how powerful and free she can be with her sexuality?
What a hypocritical society we live in...
Can quantum physics get rid of this wilsonarden11321 pest? It seems NBCNews can't do it!
Of course the University is going to stand by their nutty Professor, do you think they are going to admit they hired a pervert. This is a very evil country that we now live in and until someone with a lot of morals and common sense gets in the White House and we fired all of the perverts in there, it is just going to get worse. But since I am one of those horrible Christians who believes that the Bible is the in-errant Word of God and according to the Word of God, the worst is yet to come. You have to be blind,deaf and dumb not to see all the strange things that are happening for the first time in recorded history.
The only problem I have is how/why was someone allowed to bring a sword onto the campus and into a classroom. With all the nuts running around now and everything that has happen in schools across the country how could someone be allowed by security to bring a sword into a classroom. Then to use the sword to stab a stuffed bear is unimaginable. If a student did this he/she would be suspended from school but a profeesor has it done and there is no problem with it?
He didnt strip....
I must have missed it... What conspiracy theory?
You are right... We should shield the younger generation from the world they live in...No television, no news, no internet... /sarc
Another comment made by someone that has to drag politics into every comment they post.
OMG!!! He was in his UNDIES!!!! Wow... Really? How about all the add's for womens bra's and panties that I see on the telly, day after day? But that's ok, right? How about the add's for tampon's and pads? But thats ok... right? It's not like this guy was jerking off in front of the students....
I will admit that his point was poorly delivered, but did he really do anything wrong? I don't think so.
My appologies for my last post. After re-readin the article I can't tell if the sword play comes in the classroom or is shown on the screen being projected on the wall. It is hard to tell by the way it is written. If it is real in the classroom then that is unacceptable, if it is shown on a screen then so be it.
King Putt
Where does the far left come in?
hmmmmmmmmmmm...............Now if Prof. Hughes had a hot model chick doing the stipping, I'd would never miss a class.
Jerry wants to blame the president
Now that's a topic for quantum mechanics!
And of course King Putt thinks he has something worthwhile to say
That's another case of the uncertainty principle in action
I love your posts, King Putt.
You are why the Republican party is going down the toilet.
Some professors are conservatives. There was nothing in this article that says the professor was either conservative or liberal. You sir, are a dolt.
I bet none of the students will forget what you have to do before you try to understand quantum mechanics.
I am so glad my TAX dollars are being well spent, NOT
AKRandy - I think Columbia is private...Sure they get tax money, but prob. just a bit. More interesting is that I don't get the connection between Quantum Mechanics and stripping, Lord only knows what he would have done if the was teaching Biology???
How disappointing....all of my professors were within the realm of sane. I am thinking that he may be working elsewhere in the near future. This is not a teaching techniqure that provides any benefit, if anything it was a major distraction from the lesson. There are better attention getters to be utilized.
Maybe the professor accidentally got into one of the students private "Tea Leaves" or ate some seriously good mushrooms? The best drugs are found around colleges and military bases.
Quantum Garbage.
Who do these nuts think they are? A bit of "grandstanding", there, prof???
Judging from "The Skull", he's a Misfits fan.
Govt Slave
This is what I was referring to. I am not stating that what these experts are saying is true, simply that it makes you go hmmmmmmmm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l-8PFk8j5I
I can understand trying to hold a student's attention but just what are these colleges and universities teaching these young adults? If this is how they are teaching I think we need to look into it. I wonder how many of those students really learned anything in that class on that day and yes we are paying for our kids to go to these school to learn.
I wonder how many kids fell asleep during this lecture ? He was in his boxers for about 5 seconds with his back turned. Nothing sexual here. I thought the change was the one of the most recognizable features. My college-aged daughter tried to discuss quantum physics with me a couple of months ago. I only understood a few of the broadest ideas. It requires a whole different mindset to me. Things are not as they appear or are recognized. One needs to forget what they "know". One needs to discard tunnel vision. Do you think the kids will forget this lecture ? Personally, I thought it was powerful, especially considering how kids communicate today. I think it is reaching out to someone where they are at. The world kids grow up in today is definitely not the world I grew up in.
My question is, when the girl said, "Hi Saddam." in the video, did she just have a delayed reaction after seeing Saddam or did she not know when she said it that they were showing Stalin? Higher education, you get what you pay for and obviously this is what it takes to get students to pay attention. Knowing what the course was, I wondered through it if he would mention how Einstein never understood quantum physics and got a laugh when he did.
P.S. I think this portion of the lecture went a little over 5 minutes. Not a lot of time in a class.
The basis of quantum physics as I understand it, is completely counter-intuitive (to me, at least.) Perhaps mankind will evolve to the point where it is not. I doubt I will.
Better than my college experience. Accounting professor spent whole day reading poems from her crack addict son in prison and about her one student that committed suicide after getting a C on a test in grad school.
I though Heeevered profressors were the only ones doing things like this.
Ho hum, just another professor who will be sent to the padded room and continue collecting his pay and benefits.
Sounds just about normal for many of the profs i had that taught the higher level math and engineering courses. There was some odd ducks to say the least. At least it sounds like they could understand what he was saying. That's half the battle in most technical schools.
I think this professor's method is the perfect way to teach quantum mechanics.
I just wish that Ms Basile, my high school math teacher, had used his method.
These guys make over $150,000 at public universities. Professors at public institutions are over paid.
Tried the same thing at a Wedding...............didn't go over very well. Man that preacher was uptight.
Collect the heads of little girls and put 'em on my wall,
Hack the heads off little girls and put 'em on my wall,
I want your skull
I need your skull
Whoa!
You want to strip go to chipendales...This kind of thing is unessecary. If you have to stop to antics like this you suck as an instructor.
What's the newsworthy event? He did what you can see on regular TV these days. He took off one pair of pants and put on another. So what?
I wonder if the parents who are paying the freight for this quant class think about how their tuition bucks are being used to "educate" their children.
So what job market requires....quant. mech.??
Creek Dog - you are such a drummer...lol.
San Francisco has wrinkled up old men walking the streets naked...
I was last in a CC classroom 2 years ago - good luck teaching to the instant gratification generation (zombies). I said in an Ethics class that in order to wake up the zombies, maybe they should bring back the Draft, that might wake them out of their slumber...those youngsters in class didn't like me much that day...lmao.
If you haven't noticed the zombie generation - you just might be in your own bubble.
gtouch,
Made me laugh out loud. Thanks I needed that today!! You probably shouldn't have stabbed the teddy bear!!
Bob in KC; you don't know parents very well - they are too busy bragging that their child goes to Columbia. My son just graduated from medical school - I don't question anything regarding his education, I'm just glad he didn't end up a laborer like me :)
gtouch; my friends and I had a saying for our weddings - "nobody is leaving until everyone is heaving". If you got down to your undies - you earned bonus points.
If the posters here think this was bad - they would crap little green bricks if they knew what went on in college dorms.
This makes national news? Really NBC?
Next- Concerned parents... If you've raised your offspring in such a way that at ages 18 and up they freak at the sight of a man in his underwear then you've flat out failed them. You'll have raised and turned out a physically adult child and should have any remaining kids removed from your influence before you ruin them too.
Trust2112,
"The best drugs are found in universities and military bases"
True until about 1982- after that good drugs were increasingly difficult to find on military bases in the sense and quantities you're thinking of. In fact, I personally know the soldier responsible for ruining that situation. When he got busted for cocaine Johnny Carson made a joke about it on the "Late Show" because we were in a high profile and often publicly seen unit. The President and Chief of Staff didn't appreciate the joke of Johnny Carson passing Ed McMann an imaginary joint at the command of "Present...ARMS!". The sh/t started it's roll downhill within the next couple of weeks and this national scourge of piss testing had it's beginning in the military and quickly spread to the civilian world. I curse that soldier's name to this day. He blew it for everybody.
justoneguy,
"So what job requires...quantum mechanics?"
Ummmm... quantum cars?
Nobody catch the prof saying he was tasked with teaching this and only got an hour to do so, and realize he just wasted 6min doin that...?
Yup, just one more reason public college costs are out of control. Paying 20-30k a year is ridiculous! IMO no one teaching a college class deserves 150k ....... no one.
MA's, PhD's? Whoppee fricken doo. Most of those guys couldn't think their way out of a real world, wet paper bag.
I agree, that is probably what he was attempting. Hopefully he go through to some people in his class...and here too!
It's the stripping that makes me wonder if the prof has slipped a cog. Getting students' attention by doing/saying weird stuff has worked for me, as a teacher. But to think he could get down to his skivvies and not get reported, this prof had to have been severely out of touch with academic reality.
Molly, I am teasing you but..Ya Think ? ROFLOL
There's something wrong with this? lol. Bet there was at least 1 girl in the class that was "hot for teacher".
they don't have a football team. So they have to display irrational collegiate behavior one way or another. Most schools prefer to pay a coach $2 mil to give scholarships to people who can't pass a 6th grade test but run like gazelles. NYC has their own way of demonstrating academic excess - hiring nutcases as profs.
Tuition hikes anyone ?
Mental illness is a horrible thing. I hope this guy gets the medical attention he needs.
The stripping, though questionable, looked thought out with respect to public decency. Under garments looked like either snug boxers or workout style underwear, and he never turned around to face the lecture hall. Basically no worse than modest swim trunks at the community pool.
If he had been sporting a banana hammock, anything thongesque or did a look-at-my package dance for the lecture hall then I'd say haul this loon away.
Unacceptable for any level k-12, but one would hope that college students can process this level of shock and awe attention getting, even if his methods are questionable for some.
MJS, exactly what I was thinking on all counts.
I'm also thinking, people need to grow up and stop being such @!$%#ing prudes.
Except that he wasn't at the pool. He was in class and was supposed to be teaching the subject. That wasn't called for or needed to make his point.
This guy didn't transfer to Columbia from Penn State did he??
ram-762581 - No, he was at Columbia University teaching Quantum Mechanics to adults. What is or isn't called for is his decision not yours.
So why do I have to see tampon add's? ANd don't say to turn the channel, they are on damn near all of them.... So save it.
Based purely on what we're being told here, taking it on its face value, I'd say that Professor Hughes' behavior is quite reminiscent of that of another well known individual named Hughes!
Actually, this kind of thing is what most of the craziness in the mentally ill amounts to. With all the talk about guns and homicides in recent times, everyone seems to be under the impression that 'crazy' equals violence. That's not really true. A crazy person who is angry or delusional may be prone to violence and might use a firearm to those ends, but I can think of many more cases where violent crazies gravitated toward edged weapons such as knives or swords, and they do seem to have a thing for fire, too. In everything I've seen in life, a crazy person with a gun is more likely to give it a name and start watering it on a daily basis than to go commit a mass murder with it, although we all know that the latter does happen.
Most crazy people are more a threat to themselves as not being able to function well than they are a risk to hurting other people; maybe 80% of them are quite harmless, they're just off their rocker and tend to do things that only they understand the rationale of. Kind of like Professor Hughes, and Howard Hughes!
So some of you commenting here think folks objecting to the Professor disrobing to his undies to.. er... illustrate a point that he is a grossly ineffective teacher... this makes us prudish?
Well, that performance has nothing to do with being "prudish." However, if I consider the Prof off his rocker regarding his teaching a scientific concept, and that makes me "prudish" the etymology of that word is interesting!
So, perhaps we "prudes" should consider ourselves flattered.
second sight...and Kraut once meant something you put on a hot dog and gay used to mean you were happy. If you want to go strictly by Websters definitions - they once described Christianity as a cult. FAIL!
If college taught me anything - it was that there is the obvious use for words, then there are hundreds of fields were just the obvious definition, won't do. Try and apply just dictionary terms to a college paper and see what grade you get. In a basic WRT101 class, the word paradigm on a standard Ethos, Pathos, and Logos paper, has a totally different meaning than what Websters gives you.
lmao @ MrFrost - that sounds like something I'd come up with.
Ok, this guy has issues and sometimes these really intelligent guys have very little common sense. I think that is the case here, no common sense or a sense of what is appropriate. Or maybe he missed his calling and deep down wants to be a stripper.
I wish there was a way to fire some commenters.
So you have listened to his lecture? You said he doesn't "sound", etc... Before ya run someone into the ground about how smart they are you may want to not look like an idiot in the process.
To be honest, after hearing the description...
This guy stripping, running around with swords hacking at stuffed animals and showing 9/11 footage sounds a hell of a lot more sane than quantum mechanics. That @!$%# is unreal (in a real way, -ish, once you collapse the wave function; sometimes).
<<<waving $$$ bills>>>
The professor should be applauded - he just got more people to pay attention to quantum physics in one day than has probably been done in the last 10 years.
If he showed up to teach in shorts, would that be ok?
Let's face it - if you can't handle seeing someone in their underwear while you're in college, you aren't gonna have much fun.
No, he didn't get them to pay attention to the subject. He did something bizarre that took away from the rest of whatever he had to say that day,.
I don't blame the professor for his methods to get the class's attention.
However, it makes me so glad that I went to a small school with direct student-teacher interaction, so stunts like this weren't necessary to get our attention.
I totally agree! The stunt sounds kind of lame, but harmless. I'd bet the students are more likely to attend that class regularly just to see what the professor might do.
I was taught Biology and Ecology by a professor named Roderick Nash (semi-famous, I guess) who used to do similar stuff to get our attention. He'd start up chain saws in class and the like. It was harmless, took only a few seconds away from class time and kept us interested. Why not?
ram - I said "more people"...such as those reading and commenting here.
Though I'll also agree with Smeefy and say that I'm sure the class was paying attention to the professor, who probably gave most of them a laugh - it's called getting the attention of your audience.
Talk about an ice breaker!
There is a difference between "Academic Freedom" and "IDIOCY"! It would seem that this professor lacks the ability to understand that difference.
However, the gap is rapidly narrowing.
Ah, Grasshopper, you still have much to learn.
Parents: "Can we get a tuition refund?"
Time to show Majic Mike the door! These kids are paying hundres of dollars to attend this class.
And you aren't so why are you complaining?
What makes you think the students and parents aren't complaining? Do you think you could get away with a stunt like this at work?
Smexy!
My students pay thousands of dollars to sit in my classroom for history and language. The professor's point that quantum mechanics requires a refit of one's perspective is valid--given the nature of quantum mechanics--however, that same point can be far more suitably illustrated by other means than that of an exhibitionist--or, dare I say it, by actions which could be construed as sexual harassment?
It's in the eye of the beholder.
It was goofy, but completely harmless.
Maybe I'm over-thinking this; But it
seems to me that the show that the professor put on would have the
unintended consequence of reinforcing the garbage, that has been
deposited in most of our minds....And not that of stripping it away
Ferro: Is that not the issue of sexual harrasment--this behavior occurred and it made me uncomfortable? What if a female student in the front row was offended? The professor is in a position of authority. He has an audience under his authority that paid to be educated by him. Dropping one's drawers certainly put him at risk for such an accusation and that in itself is disturbing.
If you construe this as sexual harassment, I think you would construe everything sexual harassment.
quovadisusa,
"dropping one's drawers certainly put him at risk...."
But he didn't drop his drawers (underwear)! He changed his pants. Big difference there. Stripping down to underwear exposes no more flesh for men than being in a bathing suit on a beach, barring banana hammocks of course.
Were I in that class I wouldn't have been offended or concerned. I would have been too busy rolling on the floor, laughing and knocking other student's drinks over.
The students ought to feel lucky to have a professor who would go to such a length to get their attention and make his point. They would have been a lot more offended if at the end of the semester they recieved an F because the subject just didn't grab their attention or interest. This makes me think of a family member of mine who showed me a paper she had written for college. The paper had corrections from beginning to end because she tried to pass off a sh/t poor job, incomprehensible and disordered, to her writing professor. She was angry that he had actually corrected her instead of just accepting it and passing her. In fact, she actually reported him and claimed it was harrassment. Well, telling me about it and showing me her paper was a mistake because I took the prof's side. I chewed her out because it was obvious to me that the prof took quite a bit of time correcting her lazy mess. She was in tears when she left me, but I had succeeded in giving her an attitude adjustment and showing her how much time the prof had spent correcting the paper so that she would improve on the next one. She withdrew her complaint, apologized to her prof, and thanked him for spending so much time on the paper. This quantum mechanics prof has done the same for his students- he put a lot of effort into making sure his students got the point. Look what he gets in return- complaints, bullsh/t moralizing and the endangerment of his career. They should applause his efforts in their behalf instead and thank him for being willing to go so far for them. His performance was absolutely harmless and certainly got their attention.
What a day to have skipped class. Now I will never catch up with my studies in quantum mechanics.
At least he made an effort to make his lecture keep the students' attention. They probably will remember the info better than if he'd sat at his desk and mumbled like some "teachers" do...
He might figure he has tenure so it really doesn't matter.
Sad but probably true.
Ok, I give up. What's the problem here?
The problem is, that a huge and ever growing portion of the American population are PRUDES!
Not prudes. Just have a standard of professionalism that wasn't just about the undies, although that wasn't needed or appropriate. The whole thing wasn't necessary and was bizarre.
I'm just trying to picture my boss and/or co-workers performing in a similar manner while training me on some concept... Not happening.
Ah, the enforcers of protocol. Quantum physics is not based on the old, standard operating procedure. In fact, if you can't step out of the old, habitual frame of standard thinking and your 5 senses as a basis for perception, you will never understand quantum physics.
The lesson for today's class is that no matter what quantum reality you are in, you will lose your job for stripping.
Well said!
Amazing to me that a reasonable percentage of posters here think this is acceptable behavior. We have truly lost our way.
That's just because most of us are not ready to tell anybody else how to live.
It was completely harmless
Hey at least that got their attention otherwise I'm sure most students probably tune out......
HAHAHA.... Sheldon already pulled this stunt on Big Bang...
wonder if that is where this guy got his inspiration....?
i'm going with probably and thought he would get his students attention with the connection. Guess not?
This went too far. Just weird. No academic value.
Reason: Man made Global warming!
i have been teaching quantum mechanics for years to lovely ladies and every time i learn a little bit as well...
Hmmmmm... maybe I should implement this method where I work. It may make mobile equipment training more interesting...... or at least less boring.
Maybe.
Does mobile equipment training require being counter-intuitive ?
This was creative, appropriate, and good teaching. This was not a majors class, but more of a general science literacy class, and I assure you, these students are getting their money's worth and then some. Science profs often struggle with grabbing the attention and perspective of students, especially non-science majors taking a class to fulfill a general education requirement. And I certainly don't envy having to teach a single class in quantum mechanics! This was a great way to try to show (not tell) how to reset normal for students who have no intuition on the subject. If you don't think so, then don't go take science classes at Columbia. No laws or school rules of indecency or conduct were broken in any way. The guy could have walked out in a bathing suit. If Columbia takes any stance or action against this breath of fresh air in a subject that typically crushes students with its content and delivery, I will certainly lose respect for the integrity of the institution. Bravo Dr. Hughes.
Columbia is a private school, so whatever they consider is OK is OK.
Let's issue him a gun to protect the students!
Huh?
I don't see what the problem is. This is exactly how quantum mechanics is supposed to be taught.
exactly....my professor did the same thing when I took the class:)
apparently originality is not an attribute of quantum mechanics.