Terms of Art

Today I proctored a three-hour exam. As I headed out to the test site, I told my staff that I was going to be out of the office, proctoring an exam.

“Why do you have to say ‘proctoring,’? Why don’t you just say, ‘watching people take a test’?”

“It’s not just watching people take a test..”

“So what else is it?”

“Well. . . . I also have to hand the test out. . . .and, uh, collect them at the end.”

So, OK, we say “proctoring” because it sounds better.

Every profession has its terms of art, and academia is no exception. Intersession. Emeritus professor. I’ve spent the last 25 years of my life at one college or another and still don't know exactly what a “provost” is.

I had a professor who, at the first class meeting, engaged in a disquisition on the word “syllabus”: “Isn’t ‘syllabus’ a fascinating word? How many of you had heard the word ‘syllabus’ before you came to college? A word that was previously unfamiliar, if not unknown, to you represents now an essential, basic part of your lives. Furthermore, the word connotes authority, membership. By receiving a syllabus for a class, you are recognized as a member of a group--a class--a gathering of scholars. Knowledge of the word, familiarity with the word, is both a result and an indicator of a certain status in society.”

Of course, in a later class, this same professor talked about how beautiful it would be to be a woman and to sit naked in a grassy, moonlit field while menstruating, so. . . .