On the first day of his Critical Inquiry class, Linguistics and Cognitive Science Professor Michael Diercks strolled into the room, looking very much like any other college student, wearing a plain T-shirt and a pair of jeans. He sat down among his students and introduced himself as Michael. After engaging in conversation with his “classmates” about how late the professor was, he finally introduced himself to the class as their teacher. An awkward silence fol- lowed. And then some nervous laughter. What did they expect? This was a class on social awkwardness!
Inspired by the humor around awkwardness in media, particularly TV shows such as The Office and Arrested Development, Diercks created this class as an extension of his Social Awkwardness Project, which seeks to understand those gawky moments in real life, examining, why, where and when we experience the phenomenon.
In the Pomona College class, students look into the linguistic triggers of social awkwardness, reading papers on the topic and investigating situations that are considered to be awkward. The larger project started more than a year and a half ago, with student research carrying on over the summer. “We are trying to put together a new body of knowledge around social awkwardness,” says Diercks. “The extent to which we become successful remains to be seen.” And if there are trip-ups along the way, let’s just hope they don’t happen while he’s carrying a tray through a crowded lunchroom while walking past the cool kids’ table …
Before moving on, Pomona’s Class of 2012 first had to move merchandise and shed accessories. So, for weeks before this year’s Commencement, the daily Student Digester turned into a swap meet laden with “SENIOR SALES!” We looked past the expected futons and floor lamps for the finer things, listed here with the original asking price:
• Chin-up bar: $15
We knew it was coming. For years, we have happened across little items in other colleges’ alumni magazines about students playing Harry Potter-inspired Quidditch matches. Competitors in “Muggle Quidditch” move the ball down the field while holding broomsticks between their legs in a gravity-bound version of the aerial competitions at Hogwarts. In the absence of real magic, the winged and evasive Golden Snitch (above) is replaced by a tennis ball stuffed in a sock and carried in the shorts of a player known as the snitch runner. The Muggle [that is, non-magic] version started at Middlebury in 2005. Now, via the Student Digester, we learn there is a recently-formed team for students of The Claremont Colleges. They call themselves the Dirigible Plums, and they will compete against UCLA, Oxy and others at the Western Cup tournament in March.
