1
Lila
I locked my office door, sat back in my ergonomic chair, and put in my EarPods. Soothing piano music immediately began playing.
Slowly, as I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths, the first-day-of-class jitters began to fade away.
It wasn’t my first dayeveras an Assistant Professor at Smokey Mountain State University. That was last August. Now it was January, the first day of the spring semester. I mostly knew what I was doing now! I didn’t even reallyneedto listen to calming music before class.
But the idea of facing a room full of students still made my heart race.
It wasn’t that long ago when I was on the other side of this dynamic, showing up to class ready to take notes and learn. Heck, I was barely older than a lot of the students. But it wasn’t much of a problem in the fall semester, so I felt good about how the spring would go.
It was time to show what I was made of. Impostor syndrome had nothing on me!
I turned the music off, gathered my bag, and strode out of my office with my head held high. My heels clicked on the tile as I strode down the hallway with purpose. Students got out of my way and gave me second glances. I knew I looked good in my pencil skirt and blouse.
But it was mostly the effect of being confident.
When I reached my classroom, I paused to check the time. I was exactly one minute early. I fiddled with my phone until the clock changed from 7:59 to 8:00, then strode inside like I owned the place.
“Good morning everyone. Welcome to Criminology 101,” I announced loudly. “I’m Professor Carrington.”
Nice. I didn’t accidentally introduce myself as Lila, the way I had in my first class last semester.
The room quieted down as I unpacked my bag and connected my laptop to the cable attached to the projector. It was a theater-style room with elevated seats that looked down on my platform, and about half the seats were full. Last semester, my Criminology class was in a room too small to hold everyone. It felt nice to be upgraded, even if it meant some empty seats. Forty-two students was a fair amount, anyway.
“While I pull up the syllabus, let me go over a few things.” The room had good acoustics, and I didn’t need to raise my voice to be heard. “This class meets three times a week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. I don’t take attendance. You’re all adults and can manage your own schedule, and if you can’t, then you won’t get very far in college. However, if you come to my office hours asking for help, Iwillnotice if you’re someone who has been absent. If you’re missing class, you will fail my class.”
There were some murmurs and nods in the crowd.
“There are three exams and a final. Each is worth twenty percent of your grade. The final exam is not cumulative, which is why it’s weighted as heavily as the other exams. The remaining twenty percent of your grade will be a combination of pop quizzes and written papers. All right, here’s the syllabus. Let’s take a look at what we’ll be covering this semester.”
I slowly got into a groove while outlining the curriculum. It definitely helped that I’d done this before for the exact same class. I even felt comfortable enough to pace back and forth on the stage, scanning the crowd of students.
They looked so young. They were practicallybabies. Did I look so young when I was an undergraduate student? Surely not.
Once the syllabus was reviewed, I launched into my first lecture. “We’re going to go back to the basics. Whatiscrime? It’s a social construct, not just bad acts. Today we’re going to discuss how acts become criminalized, deviance versus illegality, and why some societal harms aren’t crimes.”
This class was only forty-five minutes long, and I barely had enough time to cover the first lecture before the bell rang. “Your assigned reading is in the syllabus!” I said as the students began packing up. “Be ready to discuss it on Wednesday. I won’t say that there’s a pop quiz, but I can’t promise therewon’tbe one, either.”
I let out a long sigh of relief, then began putting away my laptop and other things. One class down without any problems.
I could already tell it was going to be a great semester.
But that thought came a few seconds early. Two students were climbing the steps up to the lecture stage and approaching. I was used to this kind of thing: there were always a few students who had blips in their schedule and wanted to get approval for missing a test ahead of time. Part of being a good professormeant recognizing what was genuine and what was bullshit, and giving the genuine students some leeway.
Or maybe they were over-achievers who wanted to introduce themselves on the first day. Those students were usually the ones I liked the most.
I glanced up and smiled, ready to hear whatever they had to say.
But my smile immediately faded when I saw the first student’s face. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a hard, handsome face.
Irecognizedhim. But from what?
“Hi, uh, Lila?” he said.
“My name is Professor…” I trailed off as I realized how I knew him.
