
I actually adore the word DunSTIR because it's so precise and explains perfectly the kind of student I have often observed in The Professor's classes. Each syllable, a word in itself, offers a facet to this student's personality. "Dun," of course, refers to a type of behavior in which a person (often a bill collector) incessantly dogs another person for a specific purpose. "STIR" refers to mixing things up, always in a very distracting manner.
As you may have surmised, the DunSTIR is the exact opposite of the DUHster; where DUHster is passive, clueless, and droopy, the DunSTIR is noisy, scheming, and sucks all the energy out of a room. She (and DunSTIR is usually a female, though not always) is like a persistent insect that buzzes around your head and refuses to go away, and you can't swat her because she's one buzz ahead of you.
DunSTIR comes to class with an entourage, usually her sorority sisters, who all wear the same satin jacket (think "The Pink Ladies" in Grease), a set of quintuplets in a unified block who sit in the middle left of the classroom. DunSTIR stands out only because she's loud and effusive and sometimes answers her cellphone in class. The other four feed off DunSTIR, and class time is spent in various stages of girl talk and giggling.
The other students just roll their eyes; if The Professor fails to head off the annoying behavior early in the semester, she will hear about it through various pleading e-mails. Her department chair will also get an earful. The other students despise DunSTIR anyway, because she represents everything putrid about high school, the kind of nightmare memories of snooty cliques sending us into expensive long-term psychotherapy.
DunSTIR has an exaggerated sense of self worth; in her mind, the syllabus and due dates do not pertain to her. When The Professor reminds her that she doesn't enjoy special dispensation from her class responsibilities, she assumes a petulant little girl persona. If that doesn't work (and it never does), DunSTIR offers an odd sort of logic: the extra-curricular argument--as if it were understood that DunSTIR's main occupation in college is to raise pom-pom money for The Cheerleaders and Drill Team; she's thoroughly shocked and surprised that The Professor isn't buying into any of it.
DunSTIR will then resort to threats, such as, "My Daddy's a big-name lawyer, and he'll sue you and the college if you don't extend my paper deadline another five weeks."
Once the DunSTIR understands that The Professor has assumed the role of an unmoving block of resistance, DunSTIR sinks into a fuming funk--for about a week--before beginning yet another campaign of asserting the Selfish Self. Meanwhile, in class she mutters snide remarks, just loud enough for The Professor to hear. In other words, she does everything in her power to distract The Professor from her goal of teaching 35 freshmen.
Sometimes, The Professor will stop the class and suggest that Miss DunSTIR might want to take her taut posterior elsewhere.
DunSTIR may end up dropping the class, but if she remains, she may, for a time, settle down and start acting like a young adult college student--that is, until the last month or so, when the call of the social reasserts its siren song, and DunSTIR starts blowing off her work again.
With nothing to lose, DunSTIR cranks up her onslaught of begging, whining, wheedling, threatening, and crying. She, more than anyone else, sends The Professor into end-of-the-semester hiding.
In the end, DunSTIR loses the battle and receives the grade she, no dummy, has actually earned, usually a "C."
A male DunSTIR is less social, his campaign tending to be a solitary effort, but he is almost as annoying as his female counterpart, although he usually disappears mid-semester--much to The Professor's relief.
The Cunster, The DUHster, and The DunSTIR are the kind of students that keep The Professor's medicine cabinet well-stocked in stomach and headache medicine.
In fact, The Professor is now out and about, shopping for giant bottles of various over-the-counter remedies.
Best,
Ms. Snark