During the last couple of weeks, I have found myself battling a frustrating distraction that I take issue with: students talking during lectures. What upsets me is not that many students tend to talk during lectures; I don’t mind students conversing in low voices to help each other understand a lesson.

According to the May 2010 pay equity report, female professors at Washington University are paid less than their male counterparts. The report, which looked at the 2008-2009 salary information of both tenured and tenure-track faculty, concluded that female professors make less than male professors in every Danforth Campus school.

The cultivation of knowledge occurs right in the classroom when good professors are able to engage and connect with students. Simply put, a good or bad professor can make or break a subject for me.

Since 1975, according to the American Association of University Professors, there has been a continuous decline in the number of tenure and tenure-track positions at college and universities throughout the United States.

The only official pieces of information available to all students when choosing classes are a short course description that rarely changes from year to year and numerical course evaluation scores. Other information comes from unreliable sources such as friends who have taken a class (sometimes from a totally different professor) and websites like ratemyprofessor.com.

I think we can all agree that applying to college was stressful, with all of the application deadlines, fees, months of waiting and rejection notices. Professor Shane Seely knows this feeling all too well. While trying to get his first manuscript published, he sent it into countless poetry competitions, complete with those pesky deadlines and fees, and over four years of waiting and denials.

Student Union is planning to roll out a new program to help build relationships between students and professors outside the classroom through various informal social events. Kady McFadden, chair of the Student Union (SU) Academic Affairs Committee, came up with the program, called “Meet the Prof.” It is still in its initial planning stages. McFadden [...]

Sometimes a four-year academic adviser is just not enough, so when students register for classes, many consult the popular Web site RateMyProfessors.com.