Skip to content
ADVERTISEMENT
Sign In
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Virtual Events
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
  • More
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Virtual Events
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
    Upcoming Events:
    An AI-Driven Work Force
    AI and Microcredentials
Sign In
Faculty

Old, Boring, White, and Mean: How Professors Appear on the Small Screen

By Jenny Rogers November 12, 2012
They may be fictional characters, but TV shows’ images of professors may have a big effect on real-life students, one researcher suggests. In the show “Boy Meets World,” for example, an old-school instructor refuses to call students by anything but their surnames, an intimidating approach to a first-generation student.
They may be fictional characters, but TV shows’ images of professors may have a big effect on real-life students, one researcher suggests. In the show “Boy Meets World,” for example, an old-school instructor refuses to call students by anything but their surnames, an intimidating approach to a first-generation student.Scott Humbert, ABC, Getty Images

Señor Ben Chang taught a Spanish course on the television show Community in which he called his students “morons.” George Feeny, a quintessential old-school teacher and professor on Boy Meets World, refused to call his students by anything other than their last names. Maggie Walsh, a tough psychology professor on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, made herself even more intimidating by sending a couple of demons to kill a student.

To continue reading for FREE, please sign in.

Sign In

Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.

Don’t have an account? Sign up now.

A free account provides you access to a limited number of free articles each month, plus newsletters, job postings, salary data, and exclusive store discounts.

Sign Up

Señor Ben Chang taught a Spanish course on the television show Community in which he called his students “morons.” George Feeny, a quintessential old-school teacher and professor on Boy Meets World, refused to call his students by anything other than their last names. Maggie Walsh, a tough psychology professor on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, made herself even more intimidating by sending a couple of demons to kill a student.

They may be fictional characters, but their small-screen images may affect students in big ways, says one researcher. Barbara F. Tobolowsky, an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Texas at Arlington, found that television’s image of the professor is intimidating, uninterested, and generally old, boring, and white. She is scheduled to present a working paper on her research, “The Primetime Professoriate: Representations of Faculty on Television,” this week at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education.

That “prime-time professoriate,” Ms. Tobolowsky says, may shape students’ expectations about the college classroom. And to the extent it does, she adds, the fictional images of faculty could contribute to the number of first-generation students who don’t return for a second year of college. Because some students enter college believing classrooms are hostile and professors intimidating, they may be afraid to seek help until it’s too late.

“A lot of research shows that, particularly for young people, if they don’t have other information sources, they rely more on what they see in television content,” Ms. Tobolowsky says. “They learn early that faculty aren’t friendly, that they aren’t helpful.”

Sweater-Vests and Gray Hair

While previous studies of television have focused on how much time students spend watching TV and not studying, Ms. Tobolowsky looked at the content of those television shows. In her study, Ms. Tobolowsky, who has a master’s degree in film history and criticism and who previously worked in the film industry, analyzed 10 shows that aired from 1998 to 2010 and were geared toward the 12-to-18-year-old demographic group in the Nielsen ratings.

Scrutinizing professors in those shows, she examined characters’ clothing and ways of talking, camera angles and background music, and a variety of other film nuances to break down how enthusiastic the faculty were and how they interacted with students, along with other criteria.

On the whole, she says, professors on the television shows tended to be relatively old, white, and traditional, wearing sweater-vests and sporting graying hair. Young, female, and minority professors on the shows tended to teach only at arts-oriented institutions or community colleges. Most were intimidating or, at the very least, distant, throwing a scare into characters like Matt on 7th Heaven, who worried he’d seem weak if he asked a question in class.

That image doesn’t match reality, and it isn’t changing much either, Ms. Tobolowsky says. On TV, getting hired was a quick and easy process. For Zelda Spellman, a physics professor in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the hiring process happened so quickly it wasn’t even described—a far cry from the lengthy process that’s the norm in academe. Also in TV land, lectures were uniformly boring. A few more female professorial characters have cropped up in recent years, but other than that, the faces of fictional faculty have hardly changed.

For students who would be among the first in their families to go to college, and who haven’t had any direct exposure to higher education, such television images may frame their points of view and college expectations, Ms. Tobolowsky says.

Some television professors have even developed a following based on their spurious personas. Web sites, Facebook pages, and T-shirts devoted to the old-school professor on Boy Meets World bear the slogan, “Everything I need to know in life was taught to me by Mr. Feeny.”

Reinforcing Stereotypes

The precedent for television shows’ shaping worldviews exists. Crime studies have found that people who watch television frequently are more likely than those who do not to think they will be crime victims. Other studies have shown that students’ expectations influence how successful they become.

ADVERTISEMENT

“You can see it when there are students who struggle,” Ms. Tobolowsky says. “There’s some problem there, but they didn’t let you know.”

If further studies prove students’ college-classroom expectations are influenced by television, Ms. Tobolowsky says, then colleges should do more to break down the stereotype of the boring and hostile professor. If colleges were able to do so, she says, it could even help them retain more students. More interaction between students and professors during orientation events might make students less afraid of their professors, she says, and allowing more students to sit in on classes during campus visits might change expectations about the college classroom.

The professorial image on television probably won’t change anytime soon. For as much flak as higher education gets for evolving slowly, Ms. Tobolowsky says, change is even more sluggish on the small screen, where shows often reflect public perception and reinforce stereotypes.

Audiences reject plots and characters “that are too far from their view,” she says. “Because the producers and the writers want people to watch, they don’t want it to be too far-off.”

ADVERTISEMENT

In the meantime, Ms. Tobolowsky worries that some students will remain hesitant to reach out to professors in part because of what they see on television. “They’re resistant because they’re afraid of you because they don’t want to be stupid,” she says.

After all, she adds, that’s exactly what Matt on 7th Heaven worried about.

We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Tags
First-Generation Students
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

More News

Photo illustration showing Santa Ono seated, places small in the corner of a dark space
'Unrelentingly Sad'
Santa Ono Wanted a Presidency. He Became a Pariah.
Illustration of a rushing crowd carrying HSI letters
Seeking precedent
Funding for Hispanic-Serving Institutions Is Discriminatory and Unconstitutional, Lawsuit Argues
Photo-based illustration of scissors cutting through paper that is a photo of an idyllic liberal arts college campus on one side and money on the other
Finance
Small Colleges Are Banding Together Against a Higher Endowment Tax. This Is Why.
Pano Kanelos, founding president of the U. of Austin.
Q&A
One Year In, What Has ‘the Anti-Harvard’ University Accomplished?

From The Review

Photo- and type-based illustration depicting the acronym AAUP with the second A as the arrow of a compass and facing not north but southeast.
The Review | Essay
The Unraveling of the AAUP
By Matthew W. Finkin
Photo-based illustration of the Capitol building dome propped on a stick attached to a string, like a trap.
The Review | Opinion
Colleges Can’t Trust the Federal Government. What Now?
By Brian Rosenberg
Illustration of an unequal sign in black on a white background
The Review | Essay
What Is Replacing DEI? Racism.
By Richard Amesbury

Upcoming Events

Plain_Acuity_DurableSkills_VF.png
Why Employers Value ‘Durable’ Skills
Warwick_Leadership_Javi.png
University Transformation: a Global Leadership Perspective
  • Explore Content
    • Latest News
    • Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Chronicle Intelligence
    • Jobs in Higher Education
    • Post a Job
  • Know The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Vision, Mission, Values
    • DEI at The Chronicle
    • Write for Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • Our Reporting Process
    • Advertise With Us
    • Brand Studio
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Account and Access
    • Manage Your Account
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Group and Institutional Access
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
  • Get Support
    • Contact Us
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • User Agreement
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2025 The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is academe’s most trusted resource for independent journalism, career development, and forward-looking intelligence. Our readers lead, teach, learn, and innovate with insights from The Chronicle.
Follow Us
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin