Teaching a 9 a.m. class seems like a losing proposition. Not only do professors have to wake up early themselves, but they must watch their students drift off to sleep in the middle of their sentences.
But those who teach the dreaded earliest lectures say watching students fall asleep is at least something to laugh about.
"The one thing you need at 9 o'clock lectures is a little levity," says Arnold Professor of Science William H. Bossert '59.
Bossert is a long-time veteran of the 9 a.m. lecture, once a University staple but now confined to the schedules of unlucky pre-meds.
Even in his 10 a.m. Biology 19: "Population Biology: Ecology" lecture, Bossert says sleeping students are a fact of life. But the former master of Lowell House says he just keeps on lecturing.
"It doesn't happen all that often, but when it does I'm not offended by it," he says.
Professor of Astronomy Robert P. Kirshner '70 even finds classroom snoozing to be a compliment.
He has an innovative alternative theory to explain his students' in-class sleep habits.
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