"Everyone in the class knew who it was--the kind of kid with the slicked back hair...[who looked like] he needed a cell phone," Janey says. When a phone rang during a test, "everyone looked up and looked directly at that one student."

And the culprits know the ringing isn't cool. But it seems they have not developed a failsafe method for keeping them quiet.

Winthrop House resident Esther L. Healer '00 says she was mortified when, after forgetting to turn her phone off before class, it began to ring during a recent section.

Although she normally turns the ringer volume to very low before classes, she had it on full volume then, and was sitting next to the TF when the phone began ringing from inside her bag.

"I was like 'Oh, that's me--it will stop,'" she says with a bit of a chuckle. "I wasn't going to answer it."

Since then, Healer says she is more conscious about keeping the phone switched off during class, but says she thinks others shouldn't have to be bothered by the phones.

"People shouldn't be disturbed in classes by an idiot with a cell phone," she says. "I guess as an idiot with a cell phone I can say that."