while Professor Lambert won’t be here in person to monitor these study halls, it is in your best interest to attend this class in addition to his lectures.”
There were a few murmurs but Jonah ignored them as he continued to eye the two young men that had caused the deviation from his original speech. He didn’t know them by name but he had their student ID photos in his file for this class and would learn those names just as soon as he could. It was best to identify those students who might prove to be troublemakers as soon as possible in order to keep the rest of the class on task.
“As I’m sure you’re already aware from your first class with Professor Lambert yesterday, you’ll cover a wide spectrum of topics with him, from the rise to the fall of the Roman Empire. Professor Lambert has been teaching for over forty years and he’s a renowned and well-known scholar on the Roman period. He has a lot of great stories that have been lost to modern history books and he likes to look at the Roman Empire in comparison to what we have managed to build in the United States in the last couple of hundred years. But I can assure you, his comparison of Julius Caesar to President Kennedy won’t be on any of your exams. What will be on the tests, is what I’ll cover by delving further into his broad topics each week.”
He scanned the crowd again but for the most part everyone was quiet now. They were either looking at him, waiting to hear what he said next, or furiously scribbling in their notebooks already, as if his introduction would be on a future quiz. He tried not to smirk.
“Professor Lambert’s class has over 150 students and meets only once a week for one hour. As such, he doesn’t have the time or the capability to answer every student’s questions as they arise. I suggest that if you have a question come up during the weekly lecture that you write it down and bring it to me here in Study Hall. That’s what this hour was designed for and the reason I’m here is to help you better understand the information that Professor Lambert provides. Okay?”
There were a handful of nods and a couple of students had the nerve to speak up and say yes. Jonah nodded and retreated to the table pushed against the wall where he’d lined up his handouts for this first class. He kept talking as he did so, making his voice louder as he turned away from his audience.
“I’ll be passing out two stacks of papers. The first is an amended syllabus to the one you should have received yesterday during Professor Lambert’s lecture. We will go over each item once they’re distributed. The second paper is my contact information as well as my office hours and…” Jonah paused at the sound of the door creaking open at the back of the otherwise quiet room.
He frowned when his hands paused on the stack of papers. A student was late. He hated to draw attention to the student who was clearly tiptoeing in, trying not to disrupt the room, especially when he himself hated being made the center of attention, but his mentor had been very vocal about this point. He’d instructed Jonah to take a hard line on tardiness and be firm on his rules while the students were in his classroom. If he let this one student get away with being late and said nothing, the others would think it was okay to come waltzing in and out at any time and he couldn’t have that. He couldn’t lose control.
He firmed his voice into the most reproachful tone he could manage and without turning around he spoke loudly, “Tardiness will not be acceptable in my classroom. It disrupts the flow of discussion, interrupts my teaching, and distracts your fellow students.”
Jonah turned, his eyes scanning over the crowd as he spoke, looking for the newcomer, “I will let it slide today because it’s the first day of class and it’s very easy to get lost on this campus and in this building but…”
He froze, the rest of his words dissipating from the tip of his tongue when his eyes landed on the student that had snuck in late. It was a boy. No, a man and he was standing at the end of the fourth row of seats. He’d already