Professor Has Been Speaking Into Unplugged Mic for Entire Semester

At the start of every class, Professor Rosenberg adjusts the microphone on the podium at the front of the classroom. He taps on it twice to get the students’ attention, and then begins his lecture.

“It’s really been helpful to have this microphone because I teach a fairly large lecture, and it really strains my voice if I have to yell all the time. It’s funny how this tiny little thing can make such a big difference,” the professor told us.

And it’s true—a microphone is indeed a small device which can amplify one's voice. But in order to do so, it must be plugged in.

We spoke to Amelia Shepherd (C ‘20), one of the students in Professor Rosenberg’s class. “Yeah, I’m 100% sure that his mic has been off this entire semester,” she told us.

“It’s funny—when he’s trying to get our attention, he’ll lean up super close to the mic, which he thinks makes his voice louder. And it would, of course, if the microphone were on. But it isn’t on, nor has it ever been on. So it makes no difference at all,” Darby Frances (C ‘19) said.

Professor Rosenberg told us that he’s glad so many people continue to attend his lectures even though recordings are posted online. “I guess the students just really enjoy my class, which means a lot to me.”

In reality, that’s not the case. “One time I couldn’t come to lecture because, well, I didn’t want to, so I tried to watch his lecture on canvas. It was just a completely silent audio file. There’s straight up 26 audio files in a folder on the class Canvas page, each meticulously labeled with the date and topic and containing 50 minutes of complete silence,” Shepherd said.

Rosenberg also uploads scanned pages of notes, but has not figured out which side of the scanner the text should face.