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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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Hey, this is the modern liberal American College...He will most likley be given a raise and a departement head position so he can train the junior faculty...
And so...whats wrong with being creative and capturing the student's attention? Learning will never happen unless you engage the students' interest.
Not all education has to be dry and boring - except in those 'conservative' type colleges and universities, right?
Jet....., people like you that think a teacher acting like they are on crack is ok is the problem!
This was a Obamma supporter,right?
Not sure. They didn't say if he had a gun or not.
He should be fired and fined, "PERIOD". Suppose that were a student giving a powerpoint lecture and decided to use the same type of visual aides or tactics. There would undoubtedly be a different outcome in the treatment and response by the college. The student without doubt would be either expelled, arrested, not allowed to graduate, and/or be labeled some kind if individual with a diminished mental capacity that would follow them for the rest of their life. Why the double standard? I have to suspect it is the "FREE PUBLICITY" for the University.
FIRE HIM!
" and/or be labeled some kind if individual with a diminished mental capacity that would follow them for the rest of their life "
yeah, I hate it when people with a "diminished mental capacity" move into my neighborhood.
God forbid it happens to one of your children or grandchildren. It won't be funny anymore will it? Besides, with his disgusting physique, he could have gotten the same shock and awe factor using a pair of speedo bathing suits.
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
That was a Misfits Skull.
They're lucky he didn't show off his buckyballs...
They can't teach to make a point I take it?
So, make a big production over nothing and call it enlightening??
Sound's liberal
There are some teachers that simply deserve to get the snot kicked out of them.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE...CLEARLY WHAT HE SAID WORKED AND GOT ACROSS TO HIS STUDENTS - WHO WILL FORGET WHAT HE DID!? PROBABLY NONE OF THEM....
they are all over 18...he wasn't even nude...give me a break, the united states is becoming a bunch of pussies...im beginning to hate this country
That's just it, the students will never forget what he did. But will they actually remember anything about the lecture except this? It was a dumb stunt.
"....I'm beginning to hate this country." Good, please leave.
Would a really good teacher or lecturer have to do this to get the students' attention? I don't think so.
I think it was rather inventive. Shock value has a lasting effect on people, its why so many entertainers use it.
And its not like he stripped naked. You go to the local pool and you will see a whole building full of people in their skivies.
So...what exactly is the problem?
Bailiff, whack his pee-pee; next...
OMG...like you cannot see a man in his underwear on TV in a underwear commercial or even more can be seen on a beach...so what!
This just goes to show how low the morals in our universities and colleges have sunk! Would this person have gotten away with stripping in front of females on the streets of our cities or public places? I certainly hope not! Did this "act" have anything to do with the class he was teaching? NOT IN MY OPINION! The college board is going to do what?!?! about this SICK act? If I had children (especially a daughter) going to this so called "higher school of learning" they would be quickly yanked out and I would be demanding their tuition returned IMMEDIATELY with an apology. As long as these people are allowed to get away with these acts they will get worse and worse with NO form of education noticeable! I say fire this so-called professor and others like him!
quanta.....
According to quantum machanics this thing happened but it also didn't happen, so it's all okay.
If the person had been a woman who had done this, nothing would have been said at all! Double standards at its best! but becasue it's a guy it makes it that much worse!!
I believe this professor is smarter than you think. He not only got people in the campus or in the country to talk about him, and his course (which is probably very boring), he is also trying to raise a point that even Bill Maher is too afraid to consider. The possibility that we don't know everything we think we know about Sept 11 or post Sept 11. That investigation has been a closed book. Even if the murderers are the same guy everybody has been running after there are a lot of people who are not victims of 9/11 who have made millions out of it. There are wealthy law firms and law families in NYC who keep collecting money on issues concerning 9/11. One widow kept saying her lawyer husband would have made this or that if his law office had not been destroyed and collected over 10 or so million dollars from 9/11 compensations over ten years.
Bill Maher needs to talk about this. How tragedies are well used by petty shallow selfish people to exploit and make money.
The professor wanted you to open your mind and listen before jumping to well known assumptions - taken as truth.
I, up until a year ago, believed everything about 9/11 until I looked at the where the government money was going. It was not going to those in need...but to those with greed.
The professor is asking you to think about everything...That's a prof worth respecting...even if he says it in his underwear.
we would have gotten a lot more pictures....
Ram, ram, there are more Rubensteins or Ruebengolds keeping the memory of 9/11 alive than anybody in history or in the world. You don't have to get involved. Don't be a stupid foot soldier or a naïve set up. Many of you are too dumb to figure out how you might be set up. Get out of New York for a change.
now u. know what a waste of money when you send your STUPID Kids
to college just to learn how to be sleazy and learn NOTHING OF VALUE.
Sad days ahead for America.. no wonder the u.s is in MAJOR DECLINE
IN EVERYWAY.
Buy the guy a pole and direct him to a new career, he needs a good firing!
Yeah, maybe, but there are too many nut-jobs in charge of the asylum.
I wonder if wears black framed glasses.....LOL!
and not ONE of them walked out of the class!? there's no hope for the next generation. sheep. we're doomed
The only Garbage he got rid of was his reputation as an educator.