Benedictine University

Dr. Patrick Flynn
- Let's say that Kathleen Battle is in the shower one morning and she really wants to sing one of those Puccini arias. But she knows that the walls are paper-thin, and if she belts out in that soprano voice of hers, the neighbors are going to have a fit.

Dr. Elizabeth Kubek

Student: Are we going to get them [our poetry portfolios] back?
Dr. Kubek: No. I'm going to eat them.

- You're going to have a notebook just for this class. I don't care what it is. It can have puppies on it; it can be a tattered piece of crap; it can be something really beautiful you paid 20 bucks for.

- We're going to read a lot. I'll Xerox a lot of stuff and wave it at you.

(on why she insists that people keep backup copies of everything)
- Even stick media can be swallowed by a dog or something.

- This is one of those days where if you drop something you know it's going to fall in the toilet.
(she pauses; class laughter)
- But enough about my life.

- My hair looks like a King Charles spaniel!

(on why she prefers a more informal portrait of Shakespeare and thinking about him as basically an ordinary guy)
- He looks like the kind of guy you might want to have a drink with. A lot of people back then did.

(talking about different ways Shakespeare can be interpreted, such as "Love is like a rose…")
- You could also be totally cynical and say "love is like a rose because it grows really well in horse----."

- How do you stop people from storming your castle? Drop a lovely bowl of flaming pitch on them, which is basically medieval napalm.

(talking about dramatic irony and the plot of "Othello")
- You find your girlfriend’s handkerchief somewhere, and you freak out and kill her!

(apologizing for not being able to make better photocopies of a page)
- Sorry about the tiny type, but every time I asked it to enlarge it, the copier kept telling me to put in 11x17 paper, until I said something very rude to it.

- You don't really have to say "I think." You're writing a paper. Of course you're thinking!

(on the "better way" to see performances of Shakespeare's works)
- Shakespeare didn't intend you [to be] sitting in front of a VCR. He intended you to be in a big room of sweaty, smelly people--eating, watching [his plays being performed] and having a good time.

- This is Chicago. If you haven't seen "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," you were in a coma.

(on her unpredictable office hours)
- It's very hard to explain "office hours" to a 3-month-old.

- I'm not a horrible grader. You're not all going to get your papers back and be staring at me wishing I'd fall through a hole in the floor.

- During your senior year, everyone's going to start asking what you're going to do with yourself. Don't tell them.

- During the first half of the semester, you can walk into my office and find me sitting like a rock, playing FreeCell.

- Babies are remarkably portable.

(talking about the fact that she gets to Benedictine by walking)
- This is my form of therapy… saying hello to people's dogs as they bark at me as I walk by.

- I just heard Vince Gaddis yelling in the elevator about how much men like beer.

- I was lying awake last night, thinking about participles.

- I'll be back in five minutes. Unless I go crazy and murder someone, in which case you'll see me in handcuffs.

- I would never say "timewise solution." That makes me want to slap someone right there.

- [When it comes to Latin], you can stick that adjective anywhere you want.
(then, considering what she has just said)
- And that wasn't meant to be subjective.

- Got to love a guy who puts his mother in every [motion] picture.

- We're going to take a break in a few minutes, or we're all going to fall over.

- Okay, enough rambling about Shakespeare.
 

Allan Linderman

(talking about news stories)
- If it bleeds, it leads!

(talking about Hurricane Frances)
Girl: They showed an 80-year-old woman holding a shotgun, guarding her house!
Mr. Linderman: "Shoot the breeze."
Girl: I'd be more scared of her than the wind!
 

Dr. Luigi Manca

- So… end of my "commercial."
 

Dr. Susan Mikula

(making up a name of a Socialist Realism film)
- "My Love Affair With My Tractor"

- In their unilaterality—which is a word I just made up…
 

Dr. Ken Nordin
(after Dr. Nordin has just told a story about himself)
Student: How come your colleagues don't tell us interesting stories like this?
Dr. Nordin: (chuckling) Well, that's because I lead a more interesting life than they do.
 

Dr. Gail Pieper

- If you're walking past my office and you hear me laughing as I read your paper, it better be because you wrote something humorous!
 

Dr. F. Rushing
(talking about the myth that Columbus discovered America)
- You can't "discover" people living in a country for 40-60,000 years. Columbus was discovered by the native people. He was lost—they knew where they were!

(discussing the culture difference between the Toltecs and Aztecs)
- It would be like if you were sitting on the front porch of your condo on Lakeshore Drive in downtown Chicago—and you suddenly saw a crowd of half-naked people roasting something wild by your tree.

- "Humankind," not "mankind." It’s not just the men!

- If Jesus appeared the way he looked [in biblical times], he’d be arrested as a terrorist today.

(talking about Abraham Lincoln and slavery)
Student: …he was anti-slavery, but was he anti-black, too?
Dr. Rushing: That’s correct.
Student: I thought he slept around with black women.
Dr. Rushing: No, that was Thomas Jefferson.
[laughter from class]
 

Dr. Phil Schreiner

- It looks like in another 4 or 5 million years or so, our galaxy's going to collide with another, and the whole thing's going to get ripped apart. That's going to be a very bad event.

(about to attempt an in-class experiment)
- Famous last words… "It's going to work."

- If you move an object, you're doing work on it. But if I push on something and it doesn't move, I'm not doing any work on it.
[walking over to the whiteboard]
- For example, I'm not going to do any work on this wall, because when I push it, it doesn't move.
(the whiteboard, which is actually a two-layered moveable whiteboard, slides over to the other side)
 

Various Others

Dr. Vince Gaddis: Does everybody know what's going on in Sudan?
(silence)
Dr. Gaddis: Has heard of it before?
(silence)
Dr. Gaddis: Could locate it on a map?
(silence)
Dr. Gaddis: Okay, that's it, we're having a geography quiz next week.

Dr. Gaddis: Oh, blame my wife, will you? I'll go over there and smack her up during the break.
(quickly admits he was kidding)

Dr. Beth Vinkler: And what does the League of Nations say? "Bad, bad Japan! Do not invade China any more! "