Bribe Offer # 2

CONSUMER WARNING! Do not try this today! It should be obvious as you read the tale below that in today’s harassment climate, one would NEVER dare to have the kind of interaction recounted here–this happened maybe 30 years ago...

   This bribe offer requires a little background. Colleges tend to breed myths that fall into the category of urban legends; stories about professors, students and classes that sound wonderful, but when you check them out to find out where, when, and who they happened to, you can’t find anything concrete, so it really seems that the story is a myth.

   Well, there was one such story that I had heard many times when this incident I’ll talk about happened, and I figured when it did occur that it was like another story I’d heard, both when I was an undergraduate and again at URI, about the professor of engineering who was writing this horrible long equation on the board, when a student asked him if it would be on the final exam. He said, "There is about as much probability that I’ll include this equation on the final as there is that I’ll come through that window to give it to you." The students all feel pretty confident, because the window is on the seventh floor, but then during the final, sure enough the window flies open, and in comes the professor-he was a volunteer fireman, and used a ladder truck. You go to check the story out, and it is always a friend of a friend who is the source, or it happened someplace else

   So I was aware of another particular academic legend story about a professor and a beautiful student, when, just before the final exam, this very attractive female student in my non-major’s biology class comes into my office, and shuts the door behind her. Now, in these days of sexual harassment policies, any professor in his/her right mind would immediately leap up and open the door, and even back then, all sorts of alarm bells went off, but my curiosity got the better of me, and I just asked how I could help her.

   Sarah we’ll call her, started this song-and-dance story about how ever since she was a kid, her dream was to have a career in broadcast journalism, but she needed a C- in my class, and even though she was studying 10-15 hours a week on it, it was SO hard, and she didn’t know WHAT she was going to do. She cast her eyes down, then she said, "And so, Professor Heppner, I want you to know that I’d do ANYTHING to get the grade I need in your course."

   Now at this point, my mind is racing. I said to myself, "This is one of those campus urban legends that I’ve already heard, and she just gave me the feeder to the punch line. She must not have heard the story" Too good to be true, but I decided to play it out.

   So I stared at her and said, "Sarah, do you really mean what you just said? The anything part?"

   Her eyes went demurely down again, and she said, "Yes, Professor, anything."

   I paused as long as I could, then I said, "Well, in that case, if you really mean it, I suggest you STUDY!"

   There was about a three second pause, and then out of that sweet mouth came a string of cussing and profanity that would embarrass a gunnery sergeant of Marines. So, sometimes the urban legends ARE true.