Professor Battistini is the American Literature specialist at Centenary University, and like most professors here, he’s not content to treat his subject as a mere abstraction. “I try to earn my students’ respect and interest anew every class period. I never assume that just because I find something interesting my students will too.” And this isn’t just true for us lit geeks: “Of course I love my majors, but my deeper ethical responsibility is to everyone else. If I can persuade an accounting major to be shocked by an irresponsible analogy, then I’m having a good day at Centenary.”