Hidden Professor

Across the hall from where I work in the English Composition Office here at BYU is a professor who intrigues me to no end. Every morning he shows up for work at around 8:30am just like all of the other professors, but then things work entirely different.

Most of the faculty around here on the fourth floor of the JFSB are very open to having their students stop by whenever they need to. Of course, each professor has some set office hours, but they realize that the students are not always available at those times. So, more often than not, students simply show up and knock, hoping that the professor they need to speak with is available. If they aren't, then they will try back a little bit later and sometimes send an email asking when to stop by the next day.

The professor across the hall is not that kind of professor though. He shows up, turns on his light and stays in his office for a couple of hours, but then if you are paying attention he will turn the light off and work in darkness for the rest of the day. Even if he is in there he will not answer the door unless the person coming to see him has a set appointment from what I can tell, and most days there are several students or graduate instructors with questions that go unanswered because he ignores the knocks on his office door.

Now, I'm not saying that he has any obligation to answer the door, because he doesn't. I'm just saying that it's really odd in comparison to the open door policy that everyone else seems to have from what I've observed.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen a student knock two or three times to try and get him to answer and then leave when he ignores them. What makes it funny is that less than a minute after they leave he will walk out of his office to come into the workroom and get himself a drink from the fridge or put something in a graduate instructor mailbox.

Strange, so very strange.