He walked into the classroom when he found her there ready to start her lecture.

 “She had really dark eyes and she was really good looking,” Jason Schmitz, Seneca senior, says.

 Schmitz’s professor might have been a babe, but when she started talking, she seemed to capture every single person’s full attention.

 “She was funny when she taught, but in a very, very witty way,” he says. “It wasn’t like slap-stick humor. She was smart.”

 Some students don’t want to admit that they are attracted to their professors, but there is a definite reason behind the attraction. A study published in the journal Personal Relationships has shown that personality actually influences physical attraction. If a person is rude, ignorant and unfair, you’re probably going to find him or her less physically attractive, whereas if the person is honest, helpful and giving, you’re going to find him or her more attractive. This conclusion seems pretty legitimate when considering our professors’ personality traits and how they relate to physical attraction.

 Students naturally assess their teachers every day, and ratemyprofessor.com is one way students can go online to see how past students have felt about their teachers. On the site, students can rate their teachers on qualities such as clarity, helpfulness and the ease of the curriculum. These all seem like things you’d want to know about a professor before you enroll in a class, but “hotness” is also a subject of rating. If the teacher is considered hot, he or she will receive a tiny chili pepper beside his or her name.

 “I knew about this website but had never looked at it, and I didn't know that part of the rating system was 'hotness,'” says Milton Wendland, graduate teaching assistant of women, gender and sexuality studies and one of the teachers who are rated as hot.

 “I'm sort of flattered to be rated hot and sort of creeped out because it's a little odd to know that students are evaluating “hotness” instead of how much they learned or the content of the course. But on the other hand, it seems pretty natural to do that.”

 Believe it or not, there is a correlation between the overall quality and the hotness ratings of the professors. About 37 percent of KU professors are rated as “hot” on the site, and about 91 percent of those “hot” teachers have good overall quality ratings.

 This is not a coincidence, says professor of psychology Patricia Hawley.

 “I do not think the association is coincidental. However, I suspect the chili peppers reflect “liking” rather than “hotness.” Alternatively, students find people they like attractive and this applies to professors as well.”

 Students tend to transfer their interest in the course’s content to the teacher, Wendland says.  

 “If an instructor can make material come alive, can connect the material in the book or lecture to life outside of KU or life in 2009, then it's going to make the class, the readings and maybe even the instructor seem attractive. And if an instructor is connected with students, really interacting with them and mentoring them in their learning process, then that relationship can seem like a friendship or become familiar like a friendship.”

 The informality in teaching seems to be important to students, therefore they find themselves liking their teachers more.

 Natalie Marsee-Long, Topeka senior, admits she’s “been there.”

 “I had this one teacher in high school who was pretty good looking but probably in his 40s. I wouldn't say I had a crush on him, but I did find him attractive — probably because he was smart, he was helpful and he was funny,” Marsee-Long says.

 So next time you find yourself on the edge of your seat during a lecture, don’t think it’s just because your professor is physically attractive. Remember that it’s much more than that. It’s probably because you’re learning something from them, you’re enjoying what they’re teaching and you admire their ability to share their passions.