III.ii. Room Service and an Eager Slide Projector

"There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers."
- Henry David Thoreau

Returning to class today after the lengthy break that the recent combination of student protest and holiday had made for, I was surprised to see the director of the Department of Visual Arts visiting our modern architecture class. He was, in fact, making his rounds, visiting the various undergraduate classes and seeing how things were progressing. Perhaps his interest was peaked by our class in particular since it was now about only a quarter full, with fewer students being present each successive day of lecture. Most notably, the Americans seemed to be coming less frequently. This was their loss, I thought, as I was rather enjoying the class, complete with walking tours of key Bolognese monuments once a week. Nevertheless, there was something about the class- perhaps professor Lenzi's persistent uncontrollable coughing, or the brand new, sun-drenched classroom that made the slides virtually impossible to see properly- that was making other students think twice about attending her class.
    The latter problem seemed to be disturbing the professor as well, and she made no secret of her desire to have the class assigned to a new room. Our present location, at the converted monastery of Santa Caterina, was intended for political science classes that had no need for slides- the rooms were airy and bright, rather unlike the dark, lugubrious locales needed for proper art history. We needed to change rooms. The best way to get this done, in the professor's opinion, was to happen to switch to a particularly faded slide when the director was present. As he approached, plainly visible due to the glass wall that encloses the room, professor Lenzi frantically tried to switch slides. Unfortunately, most of these seemed to be appearing quite well. She of course did not notice that the director, still outside, was watching her do this with a strange look on his face. He poked his head in the door and insisted on having the slide projector replaced as soon as possible, since it seemed to be working so erratically. Other than that, he commented on how nicely these rooms seemed to be working out, and then left without any further comment.