By Maggie Biunno

The University has 1206 faculty members, but 1452 professors are rated in the location that is often a first-stop for students before class registration begins each semester. RateMyProfessor.com will always hold records of those who have taught and left the campus to pursue other schools, but their ratings and stories will never compare to legacy of William James.

Just a few weeks ago, Rate My Professor announced top-50 lists for categories such as Hottest Professor and Schools with the Highest-Rated Professors. And James made the rankings! He rated 29 in the Most Rated Professors listing.

In his 21st year at the University, James was unaware of this ranking, although he does check his ratings on the site. While “most rated” could include positive or negative comments, a yellow smiley indicating “good quality” shows that James is, indeed, a popular marketing professor at the University.

With many degrees ranging from geography to computer science, a bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. later, James ended up in marketing. “My father was ready to pull his hair out I changed my major so many times,” James says easily with a laughing grin.

James currently is teaching three courses at the University: Consumer Behavior, Electronic Marketing and Marketing Research. In these courses, he uses a method of acting like a coach or a mentor, making the students more comfortable by using himself as an example when explaining concepts. This idea came from his mother, also a teacher, who used a similar routine to help students.

Not only are the examples enjoyable, but they are “sometimes true, but exaggerated, sometimes totally false, but [regardless, it] gets the student to remember the concept,” James says. He says he often felt bored in class and does not want his students to feel that way.

“My favorite part of class is that Professor James can make any subject matter interesting,” says Jason Isaacs, a marketing major.

“When lecturing, Professor James always puts the subject matter in a context that students can relate to; he always relates course material to the real world.”

Isaacs also says he refers to RateMyProfessor.com before signing up to any class and that the ratings “heavily influence” his decision. Rave reviews on the Web site were not the only reason he chose James.

“Professor James was recommended to me by fellow students as well as faculty,” Isaacs says. “My fellow students told me that everyone enjoys his classes and that I would not regret taking him. This has proven to be true.”

With experience in marketing research, James knows that RateMyProfessor.com may not be the most accurate resource for finding out what students think of him. He referred to raters on the site as “the lovers and the haters,” and that one can never really know for sure how accurately that represents the total number of his students.

He did share a rating that he is “particularly proud of” because it is the truth, written at the end of the fall 2005 semester: “On the first day I thought to myself, who the ‘F’ is this guy, but actually turned out to be a genuine, funny and dedicated professor. He understands what our school is about and works with us. Don’t be surprised, you will learn something, especially not to judge someone by their appearance.”

Professor William James received a ranking of 29 out of 50 RateMyProfessor.com Most Rated Professors. (Maggie Biunno)