Public Enemy puts Shira Savada to sleep – but only when it plays while she’s in class.

When her abnormal psychology professor played the group’s music mid-lecture last week, the senior magazine journalism and psychology major tried futilely to wrench her eyelids open. But as she and many other students do in at least one class a week -usually during a large lecture course – she took a micro-nap.

‘I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep,’ Savada said. ‘How do you fall asleep when your professor is playing rap music?’

While most students claim their struggle to stay awake in class begins with the opening credits of an in-class movie or 90-minute lecture, most blame their near-narcolepsy on sleep deprivation from all-night studying, partying or wasting time with 2 a.m. reruns. And it can only get worse this month, as all-night studying for midterms and the increasingly dark, cold weather may make sleeping patterns even more irregular.

To cope, some strategize their nap time, while others try everything they can to resist sleep – including tapping, pinching, chewing gum, reading the newspaper, scribbling or trying not to blink.

‘I feel guilty,’ Savada said. ‘If I’m there and made the effort, I’d rather stay awake.’

While some professors won’t hesitate to kick out offenders, most believe they have no real reason to do so. Students have the right to sleep if they want – even if it is rude – and kicking them out serves little purpose other than embarrassment, said Scott Strickland, a history professor. A professor doesn’t know what a student’s personal situation is, Strickland said, and can’t judge his or her reasons for sleeping.

‘My philosophy is that students have made a decision,’ said Steven Blusk, a professor in the physics department, ‘and apparently stayed up and didn’t get enough sleep. And I respect that decision.’

In Blusk’s large lecture for his Science for the 21st-Century course, he regularly sees students falling asleep, and, while he thinks it’s rude, he reasons that sleepers are not disturbing other students – they are only hurting themselves. Instead of trying to entertain the class every moment, which is difficult in a class for non-science majors, he simply tries to be a bit humorous and keep an eye out for students who appear confused.

‘I usually look for the deer in the headlights look,’ Blusk said. ‘It’s challenging to keep students’ focus for 55 minutes.’

Within the sea of large lectures, falling asleep seems almost safe. And because these courses tend to have very little group interaction, discussions or question-and-answer sessions, sleep seems almost inevitable for those running on merely a few hours of downtime.

‘In classes with 120 people, there’s less of a chance of being noticed as your head’s bobbing up and down, then jolted awake,’ Savada said. ‘I’ll never sleep through a small class.’

On their quest for attentive behavior, many resort to the foolproof drug of choice: caffeine. On a trip to the Schine Student Center anytime before noon Monday through Thursday, it’s impossible to miss the line streaming out of the food court beginning at the Dunkin’ Donuts counter. The larger and more caffeinated the drink, it seems, the better.

‘A lot of kids don’t even like the taste of the coffee, but they need anything they can to wake them up,’ said Debbie LeClaire of Syracuse, a Dunkin’ Donuts employee. ‘They want that caffeine. It’s a drug.’

Many students ask the employees which drinks contain the most caffeine, and add sugar on top of the sugar already mixed in – sometimes up to 10 packets.

‘Some of these kids want more, and we think, ‘What? Are you thinking?’ LeClaire said. ‘We just worry about them.’

Mike Penna, a senior musical theater major, said he doesn’t even try to stay awake. If the class is boring, or if he had a late rehearsal the night before, he has no problem taking a short nap. Like some other students, he prefers to tackle the sleeping situation by planning his each semester’s schedule based on the basic tenets of avoiding any class prior to 10 a.m. or between the hours of 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., following the lunch-induced drowsiness.

‘Between 1 and 3, I’m falling asleep,’ Penna said, as he waited for his 1 p.m. Modern American History lecture to begin. ‘Like in this one.’

Upperclassmen like Penna may have the upper hand in planning the best schedule to avoid in-class nap time. Because they have more flexibility in selecting courses, they can register for classes at times when they are most awake. But freshmen, who frequently cannot choose their schedules and get stuck in 8 a.m. classes, seem much more familiar with falling asleep.

‘If there’s class discussion, I totally lose track of what they’re saying,’ said Julia Renz, a freshman communications design major who has several morning classes. ‘I just try and open my eyes as wide as I can.’

Students who continuously fall asleep in class are, most likely, not getting their required amount of sleep at night. Whenever the sleep cycle and internal circadian rhythms are thrown off, they will become sleep deprived and may sleep in class, said James Jacobs, director of Health Services.

‘The bottom line is, are you sleeping or not sleeping?’ Jacobs said.

For whatever reasons, students are staying up until 2 a.m. or later, working, procrastinating, instant messaging or hanging out with friends, Jacobs said. If they have class before noon, they can barely get their needed eight hours. Meanwhile, some students may be disturbed by noisy neighbors, stimulants in medicine, their own snoring problems, ringing phones or IMs, Jacobs said.

The annoying act of falling into – and fighting – sleep during class can be blamed on biology. When the urge to sleep hits, it’s based on the conflict between the cognitive need to stay awake and pay attention and the physical need to sleep, Jacobs said. Once sleep begins, a person loses control of the neck muscles and it drops, blocking off the airway. This sudden loss of breath, and awkward falling motion, could explain the head jerk.

‘The head bobbing thing is an interesting phenomenon,’ Jacobs said. ‘You hope that nobody noticed but 10 seconds later, you’re doing the same thing.’

Thus students have fallen into a vicious cycle. When they stay up too late, they fall asleep in class and most likely take a nap later in the day, missing prime homework and study time, Jacobs said. Then that night, they must again stay up very late and restart the routine.

‘There’s only 24 hours in a day,’ Jacobs said, ‘and sometimes sleep seems like a cop-out.’

Published on October 19, 2004 at 12:00 pm