Where Is Bill O'Reilly When You Need Him?

For the past couple of weeks, I've been frustrated by the amount and volume of talking among student during two of my lectures. In my Ancient and Medieval Art class, the problem stems from two distinct groups of people: freshmen girls and middle-aged women who are auditing the course, I suspect in order to plan some sort of Eurasian vacation. The women tend to sit far forward if they can, so they're not close enough to hear usually. A group of four freshman girls, however has been sitting only twenty feet away from me, and they've been easily heard. In my Cryptography course the culprits are computer science students, who, like many computer science students, are pasty males with little skill at detecting inappropriate behavior on their part.

In past weeks I've talked to the guys in my math class about piping down, and I've shot the girls in the art history class some sharp looks, but without progress in both cases. On Monday I found the girls talking louder than ever. As a temporary fix to the problem that could be implemented immediately, I threw a ball of paper at the group, but in curved too much and landed in the empty seats in front of them, ultimately having no effect. As a more lasting solution, I went over and talked to them after class, getting myself scowls from two of the girls and gratitude from numerous students who had been equally bothered and less courageous. Sarah disapproved of my paper-throwing, and told me that I should have involved the professor, so I decided to take her advice in my math class. When I went to office hours that afternoon to ask a question, I mentioned that there had been much talking in his class, and he seemed genuinely surprised. Today, when things got bad enough that I couldn't hear him, I stood up and moved closer to the front. Professor Brualdi saw this, kindly waited for about fifteen minutes, and then reprimanded the students in the back. Hopefully things will be better in the coming weeks.