From Arizona.

A tenured professor of Business at a large state school in Arizona sends this:

I'm a big man, over 300 lbs. Not especially fit. I get a big red face after walking up the stairs to class. I'm known to sweat a little after teaching all day. And I make the occasional remark about the size of my belly when I'm feeling especially self-conscious about my size.

Those facts - however - don't have much to do with what I teach in Finance. I know my job. I'm skilled, insightful, and have had a long professional career before coming to the university. Yet, my students find that the only way they can understand me, the only way they can fit me into their narrow worldviews, is to call me Fatty. It's right there next to my name a handful of times on RMP. Nothing about whether I stay after class or not. Nothing about me helping them with their projects. Nothing about whether I challenge them, teach them, lead them, or make them work hard.

Just that I'm a fat ass and this recent post: "He loves him some big fat lady too I bet."

Why on earth do you think I come to Rate Your Students for a little proxy thrill. Student evaluations - both on campus and the RMP variety - have proven to me to be useless. I've never learned a thing from them. Students take haymaker swings at whatever foibles I have - did I mention I sometimes stutter when I speak too quickly - and these are documents I'm supposed to use, supposed to consult.

Has it occurred to anyone that 19 year old stoners wearing Greek letters don't have the foggiest fucking idea what it means to be a professor?