Bwog humbly presents our traditional anthology of professors’ opening remarks. Remember to send any overheards tomorrow to bwgossip@columbia.edu.

Morris Rossabi, History of the Mongols

“A visitor to Mongolia once came upon a Mongolian woman whom he

thought had enormous breasts that seemed to be moving. Upon further

investigation, he found that the woman was nursing a young lamb.” Rossabi then explained this story showed the strong relation between man and animal in Mongolia.

Marcellus Andrews, Intro to Economic Reasoning (Barnard)

“So as you can see, I’m an old black man. And today is a day where old black men tend to get weepy. I’m ugly when I cry, so I’ll restrain myself.”

Catherine Monk, Abnormal Behavior

Students were treated to one of Professor Monk’s choice music selections: namely, “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley.

Richard Bulliet, History of the Modern Middle East

“The Modernization of the Middle East similarly suggests that modernization is a precisely describable process by which each part of the world at its own pace will become like America. Which is a wonderful concept because America is, at least today, the most wonderful country in the world. Maybe it wasn’t yesterday, but…”

“The first meeting of the course is ‘the bullshit course,’… so this is basically the bullshit lecture”

“There will be things like ‘pick readings from the discussion section and write an essay about them. And you will think oh shit, I didn’t do the readings.'”