Entertainment is not the answer. The effects of StudentU.com do not call for any fanfare by means of trivia games, celebrity appearances or gorgeous blondes handing out the day's lecture guidelines at the lecture hall's back doors. But professors need to provide for their students something more than what can be condensed into a few pages of notes. Inspiration, awe, frustration, outrage--whatever the reaction, there must be an emotional relationship between the professor and the student created by the experience in the lecture hall.
The new availability of lecture notes on the Internet creates a challenge for our professors to be more than machines that spew facts and theories at their students. Professors need to provide the incentive by means of leadership and interaction for students to once again enroll in classes and resurrect the respect Weber had observed.
Jordana R. Lewis '02, a Crimson editor, is a history and literature concentrator in Eliot House.