Wow, I can't believe that a student had the gall to talk like that to his sponsor. The admissions process usually weeds out those types of students, but a few bad apples can always get through.
The annual WUSTL Engineering Scholarship Dinners were always very pleasant in my experience. If anything, the students were overly polite and felt a little intimidated in their sponsors' presence. We certainly felt intimidated by the formal atmosphere at the dinner.
You see "not intimidated by authority"; I see "asinine". Part of the point, actually, was that "nemesis" didn't know that the fellow was an authority on the topic. Maybe if he had, he would have been intimidated. ;)
Did I imply otherwise? That said, I think socially ungraceful people should have access to higher education, too, and we'd be a much poorer world if they hadn't had so in the past.
Especially (but not just) because social grace strikes me as a arbitrary and moving point on an arbitrary and moving scale.
The annual WUSTL Engineering Scholarship Dinners were always very pleasant in my experience. If anything, the students were overly polite and felt a little intimidated in their sponsors' presence. We certainly felt intimidated by the formal atmosphere at the dinner.