Why did you want to be undercover and anonymous?

"Undercover" and "anonymous" are different. The undercover part was so that I could experience life as a student. If I went and announced to my classes, "Hey, I'm a professor," would the professor teach me the same way? Am I going to be allowed into study groups? Am I going to get the real experience of being a student?

As for the anonymity part, an anthropologist always makes up a name for their village. When I go overseas and write about the South Pacific, I make up a different name for my village.

To protect the villagers' privacy?

Yes. So I made up a name for my university. When I interviewed people, I told them, "I will not use your name if I quote you, I will not use your dorm, and I won't say the name of the university. I'll make something up." And I did that. But in my classes and in the dorm, I wasn't anonymous. People called me by my real name. It wasn't until later, when I was writing, that I thought, if I'm not going to use the name of the university, then I can't use my name, because that would identify the school. Of course, you write a book, you want to have your name on it. But I realized, if I'm going to keep my promises to the students, then I've got to make up a name for myself.

How did Jacob Gershman from the New York Sun figure out who you were?

He said he found clues in the book -- that the university was near Las Vegas, that it was close to the mountains, that I grew up in New York, that I was in my 50s and had done anthropological research abroad -- and he probably found clues because I wasn't very paranoid about it. Like I said, anthropologists always make up the name of the villages they study. So I figured, who would care what school this is? Who cares who I am? I'm nobody! I guess he thought that [identifying me] was an important thing to do.

Other papers picked up on the New York Sun story, including my own state paper, the Arizona Republic. They disclosed my identity on the front page. Then all of a sudden we had all these reporters at the university, and I was faced with a situation that I didn't anticipate. I was concerned about breaking the agreement I'd made with students. I thought the only thing to do was to come out and talk to the press. By not confirming, I was fanning the media fires. So now I'm talking to people, but this was not what I intended to have happen. This book should have been about an anonymous university, and I should have been anonymous.

Your undercover research method has stirred up quite a bit of controversy.

Part of the problem was that people [made comments about the book] before reading it. When they read I went undercover as a professor, they said, "How could you do that?" not realizing I actually did informed consent with people I talked to. All of the observations I made while living as a student were always public. I never report any private conversations. If it's something private someone said to me thinking I was a fellow student, I can't report it. There are no quotes from people who haven't given me permission.

How do you respond to critics that say you did this study primarily to advance your career?

The idea that it would advance my career is wild. How does it advance my career when I try to write the book anonymously, and I have no intention of ever revealing that I ever wrote the book, and it's not even in my field of interest? I am at the end of my research career, and this was about me becoming a better teacher.

Why did you think you needed the on-the-record interviews in addition to your observations?

I realized that at my age, I'm not having the quintessential student experience in all respects, and I really needed to talk to other people, as well.

Since you mentioned it, you really don't look like the typical college student. I thought more students would be suspicious, or at least probe into your background. Yet only one student, a journalism major, seemed to suspect anything unusual. Later, some student friends told you they thought "it was a little sad for an older woman to be living in the dorms" and they didn't want to ask too many questions for fear there was a messy divorce story.

Truthfully, I felt I just wasn't that interesting to them. The questions they asked me were the same questions they asked each other: What is your major? Where is your hometown? And there were plenty of older, nontraditional students like me in school. I wasn't the only one, and it wasn't that strange. There were even a few others in the dorms, just not in my dorm.

How did you avoid your colleagues on campus?

I took classes with professors who I didn't know and assumed they didn't know me. I consciously selected subjects that were not my forte, like business and engineering and computer science.

It sounded like you had to work pretty hard to socialize with the students in your dorm, because they were never around! As part of your research, you consulted studies (including the 2003 National Survey of Student Engagement) that suggested that students today study less and socialize less than students from the '70s and '80s. From what you saw and heard, what fills this extra time?

Students have more pulls on them today. In the group of 50 students I interviewed, none spent more than three hours a day socializing. Instead, they were in student clubs, they were taking five classes, some were double-majoring so they were even taking six. They had volunteer work, and way over half of them were working. That's a major thing. National data reports that students are working over 10 hours a week.

Why are so many students working?

My impression was that the work is not enough to pay for tuition. They're taking out loans, and the loans are really paying for tuition. The jobs are more of a supplement. They pay for the way of life the students are accustomed to: their iPod, their computer and their car. Most of these things students didn't have or care about years ago. They're also supporting their nights out, which can include eating or drinking, and shopping.

It sounded like work, present and future, is a huge aspect of college students' lives. In addition to spending their leisure time working at part-time jobs, most of the students' energy seemed to be focused on preparing for future careers. Everything they did -- clubs, volunteer work, even friendships -- seemed geared toward getting them a job after school.

Well, research shows that 61.7 percent of those who finish high school go on to college. Before World War II, only 16 percent of the population attended college. So now we have a much less elite group of people in college. State universities are helping people get a leg up on life. At the same time, tuition costs are rising, and as a result, people are going into greater debt to pay for their education. I don't think there's anything wrong with thinking about a career. I don't want my students to exist only in the world of ideas.

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