To review for the exam, Berk has put together a collection of sample problems and flashed them up on a screen via overhead projector. Number 12 has touched off a wave of appreciative snorts among the six dozen young women and men in the hall:

"Nurses who routinely participate in the sport 'Knock the Physician Off the Pedestal' will demonstrate significantly higher levels of joy than nurses who absolutely refuse to engage in such irreverent behavior." After some discussion, the class concludes that "level of joy" is the dependent variable in this problem, and that the statistical analysis it calls for is the separate variance T-test. Then it's onto the next problem: "Hospital supervisors who take regular doses of ADMINISTRIVIUM will demonstrate a significantly lower level of obnoxiousness than their drug-free counterparts."

He happened upon humor almost out of desperation: "I had no clinical background whatsoever. So, in order to cover up my incompetence in the clincial areas, I used jokes in the examples I made up," he explains. From there it was an easy jump to inserting humorous information in his course syllabus (Under prerequisites: "One semester of Sesame Street, Mister Rogers, Barney, or the equivalent"), and issuing warnings on the covers of his handouts ("DO NOT drink alcoholic beverages while reading this paper").

Berk acknowledges that college professors, as a group, are not exactly known for being the life of the party. But he contends that even those with "the charisma of spackling" have the wherewithal to inject a little levity into their lectures. To make the job easier, he's written a how-to book on the subject: Professors Are from Mars, Students Are from Snickers: How to Write and Deliver Humor in the Classroom and in Professional Presentations (Mendota Press, 1998).

Much as he enjoys a good laugh, Berk doesn't advocate humor for its entertainment value alone. He contends that it can actually improve student performance by reducing anxiety and knocking down the barriers that normally exist between students and their professors. And being a statistician (and assistant dean for faculty development at Nursing) he's done the research to back up his contention, using his Hopkins students as guinea pigs. In a study due out in the fall issue of Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, he reports that over the course of a semester, undergraduate and graduate students in three different classes showed improved attitudes toward statistics, decreased anxiety, and increased overall achievement. Berk acknowledges that, given the variety of variables involved in teaching, it's difficult to isolate humor as the only explanation for their improved attitudes and performance. But the man who routinely signs his e-mail messages with "Fabio" or "Don Johnson" feels comfortable concluding that humor can be a very effective tool for getting students to tune in to, and grasp, daunting material.

He advises starting off on a light note the first day of class by distributing a syllabus peppered with fictitious entries. A tried and true entry under "teaching strategies," for example: "Lecture, small groups, dramatic presentation, peer critique and humiliation, stand-up comedy, IMAX movies, field trips, hand-to-hand combat, picnics, and cruises." Or, to show you don't take yourself too seriously, make a mockery of your credentials. Berk, who works in the healthcare field but says he has "no real letters," never fails to elicit a group chortle by listing: "Ronald A. Berk, PhD, CNN, ESPN, CSPAN, and All-Around Fun Guy." If it sounds like Berk (or "Ron," as his students refer to him) enjoys making jokes at his own expense, you're right. He's a jovial figure with an infectious laugh, known around the halls of Nursing for the loud ties he wears and the toy frog keychain that dangles from his hip pocket. The more approachable a professor, he says, the less hesitant a student will be to ask questions or come for help with coursework. That's why it's not unusual for him to drive home a statistical concept by doing a "Tooltime" skit from TV's Home Improvement, or to start class with a Top 10 list that makes reference to The X-Files or Ally McBeal.

Says Berk: "I'm not setting myself up as superior; I simply stayed in school longer. I have a respect for my students that says, 'You're not inferior.'"

But what about maintaining the dignity befitting a professor at The Johns Hopkins University? Does the lightheartedness he advocates really have a place within the hallowed halls of one of the nation's great institutes of higher learning? Unabashedly yes, says Berk. "It's all in the way I do things. I've never had the feeling that students have lost respect for me. I'm not at the level of being a clown. I try to be as clever as I can [in the humor I use]. Jeopardy!, for instance, is an intellectual activity."

He says he was later vindicated when the American Educational Research Association gave him the green light to do the session. Berk says his session was quickly oversubscribed, and the resulting reviews were so strong that he's been asked back every year since. In the meantime, the NCME has done an about-face on its earlier rejection and hired him for the last two years to teach at its annual conference.

Berk faced a similar lack of enthusiasm when trying to find a publisher for Professors Are from Mars, Students Are from Snickers. He was turned down by 22 publishing houses before Mendota Press, an imprint of Magna Publications, agreed to take on the project. "The sense was that humor in academia is an oxymoron," he says; "that professors take themselves so seriously, the market [would be] impossible to penetrate." Though thrilled to be in print, Berk has no delusions of being the author of the next mega-seller; he and his editor are pleased that Professors Are from Mars has sold 1,200 copies and is now in its second printing. Berk's book is filled with pointers and tried-and-true approaches, designed, he says, to put being funny within reach of even the "humor-impaired." It turns out, for instance, that the makeup of the audience has a lot to do with whether you flop or leave them howling with laughter. The best bet, according to Berk: a large class, where students sit tightly packed and women outnumber men. "Women are rooting for the speaker to succeed, whereas guys couldn't care less," he explains. The gentler sex is also less "uptight," he says, and more willing to give themselves over to the "emotional venting" of laughter.

There are obvious targets to avoid: putdowns of individuals or groups, on the basis of ethnicity, race, or gender. And he also advises steering clear of jokes about physical characteristics (being short, blond, or pregnant), and about extremely sensitive issues, such as abortion or divorce.

When choosing a target for ridicule, he says, it's best to choose a big enough target or "butt." (He refers to this as the "Big Butt Theory of Humor.") Under this category might fall the university itself, or its president, or the practices of a particular profession. A safe but successful strategy, Berk says, is to "focus on characteristics that are obviously not true, outrageously exaggerated, or relatively unimportant." He likes to start off his professional presentations by noting that Johns Hopkins University is the recipient of the most federal research dollars; he then goes on to cite such generous contributors as "Moisha & Izzy's Bagel Shop" and "Beenie Weenie's Carpet Cleaning."

Back in Inferential Biostatistics, Berk's students have just completed their final review question ("There will be a significant difference in the number of TV viewers who like Tim 'The Toolman' Taylor versus Al 'The Flannel' Borland on Home Improvement as a function of gender") and are now hard at work on their final Jeopardy! question. As the Jeopardy! theme song fills the air, the students labor to fill in the missing sections of a statistical table. The category is ANOVA, or analysis of variance.

After class, I do a casual survey to gauge students' take on Berk and his rather unconventional approach to teaching. One serious-looking woman says, "It's not effective at all for me. My brain can only handle so much and I tune out when he starts telling jokes. Then I realize that I've missed everything. I'd like a more straightforward approach."

For the most part, though, those I talk to seem amused and say that Berk's classes are a welcome respite from the relentless seriousness that abounds in Hopkins's lecture halls. "This is completely different from any other class I've had here," says Laura Casey, a student in Nursing's accelerated program. "He makes you want to come to class. You don't feel bored, like you can just get the notes from someone else. And he's careful to use humor that is not offensive."

For his part, Berk shows no signs of returning to the somber pedagogical style that had his students keeling over from boredom. "I can't take anythin g seriously anymore," he says. "And I'm having more fun than I've ever had in my life."

Copies of Professors Are from Mars, Students Are from Venus can be ordered by calling Mendota Press at 1-800-433- 0499, ext. 182, or Matthews Medical Bookstore at 1-410-955-3931. Material reprinted here was with permission of Mendota Press, ©1998.