December 7, 2015

I discovered a new website today:  DrawYourProfessor.com  So much to say, but not much about the artistic quality of the generic student body across the world. Thankfully, one eventually finds a fine arts faculty member depicted and there is hope for the artistic future of the world.

I was teased by the suggestion that they have thousands of drawings of faculty all over the country, but one quickly finds that if you choose an institution in the search box, you are likely to get a long list of faculty with no drawings to draw upon. I must have looked up 100's of faculty I know and only hit upon two with drawings.  This is truly unacceptable.  C'mon, students, draw your professor.

The owners of the site are missing some golden opportunities.  They should have a daily contest that encourages visitors of the site to "interpret" the drawings.  For instance, what's up with all of these drawings of Professor Addalay at University of Alaska, Fairbanks?  Do his English classes encourage abstract thinking or are students' hands too frozen in Fairbanks to draw very well?

It also brings to mind so many other potential "___ your professor" sites:

• Meme Your Professor -- Let's face it, this is one small step up (or down) from Draw Your Professor.
• Antagonize Your Professor -- Post comments that you know will set him or her off.
• Repeat Your Professor -- Repeat the salient points from your professor's class that day.  It might actually help you learn.
• Stalk Your Professor -- Use social media to report everything he or she does.
• Drink (to) Your Professor -- Post drinking games based upon your professor's habits.
• Haiku Your Professor -- It's time we tap into the other creative fields than simply drawing.
• Slam-Poem Your Professor -- For the less classicly minded students.
• Translate Your Professor -- Whether it be from his or her heavy use of jargon or, for you STEM students, his or her heavy accent.
• Diagnose Your Professor -- Put that lower-level psychology knowledge to use and diagnose your professor's disorder.
• Absolve Your Professor -- React to some other site's posting about your professor that you deem unfair.
• Mash Your Professors -- Post images that mash two of your professors together. 
• Coordinate Your Professor -- Put your poorly-dressed professors into more stylish outfits.
• Deconstruct Your Professor -- If you need to ask what this means, you aren't ready to try.
• Ignore Your Professor -- Refuse to post anything. 
• Name Your Professor -- Maybe the hardest of all of these, given some of my experiences.  We have students who can't name their professor weeks into a semester. 
• Respect Your Professor -- Nah, that would never work.