Professor Bastigkeit

Edee meets her first truly horrible professor in Twists of Love. His name: Professor Bastigkeit and he is her organic chemistry professors.

Some details about Professor Bastigkeit (Professor B). He is an American with German roots. During the previous year he was on sabbatical teaching at a university in Germany. While there, he and his family visited distant family and learned about their heritage. Unfortunately when Professor B's sabbatical was up they weren't ready to leave. 

Professor B asked SGU to extend his sabbatical. SGU refused. So a pissed off Professor B returned to the United States with a huge chip on his shoulder. To make matters worse, he was asked to teach a lower level undergraduate class upon his return. Prior to his sabbatical Professor B had taught graduate level and upper level undergrad classes. Teaching organic chemistry felt like adding insult to injury. 

Why did SGU not extend his sabbatical and require him to teach organic chemistry? Because two other professors were out on maternity leave. SGU opted to use existing professors to cover the gap than hire new. Those details were lost on Professor B who was too mad to be reasoned with.

Thus, Edee meets an irritable Professor B who proceeds to rant about the horrors of American education and the massive failure of its students, especially as compared to German students. He takes things a step further by purposely teaching as poorly as possible, adding new materials into the tests, and implementing a pop quiz policy (Book 3).

Not a nice guy, right?

Professor Bastigkeit is based on a real person: the inorganic chemistry professor I suffered through during my freshman year at the University of Arizona. Yes, I had to contend with a jerk of a professor who ranted on several occasions about how German students were better than American. His German sabbatical was not extended. He taught the methods to solve the problems wrong. At least that's how it appeared once I started studying straight from the book instead of from my lecture notes. 

You could say that the character of Professor B falls under the category of

“truth is stranger than fiction."

I don't remember the real Professor B's name. Bastigkeit is the last name of someone I genuinely like and admire. It is also simply a cool last name to say. Hopefully the name’s owner isn't offended that his last name got used by a villain.