Food industry management junior Elizabeth Manning said students in her statistics class are livid after two masked assailants hit their professor in the face with two "cream" objects during their Wednesday night class.
The class, a review session for a test, had to be ended minutes after the attack.
"Everybody was pretty shocked," Manning said. "I think it's kind of a mean trick. The teacher was hurt and humiliated, and it was not fair to us."
Statistics and probability Associate Professor Vincent Melfi was lecturing and reviewing with more than 300 of his students in his Statistics 315 class when two people threw the objects at his face. The attackers escaped through the back doors of B-108 Wells Hall.
"They were throwing something akin to a cream pie," Melfi said. "My assumption is it was a prank."
Melfi contacted MSU police about the event, but said he did not file a report because the incident was not that serious.
Manning said she heard what sounded like money being deposited into a food vending machine about 5:45 p.m., but then realized it sounded more like some sort of cream was being sprayed.
Moments later, she said she saw one man run down each aisle along the center section of seats. Each man, wearing blue jeans and a white shirt, was holding a Styrofoam plate with a type of cream behind their backs as they walked down the aisles, she said.
Manning said both men were wearing masks and eventually started sprinting to the front, where Melfi was lecturing, threw the pies in his face and left. Class was called off about five minutes later because the cream ended up all over the overhead projector, she said. Class typically ends at 6:50 p.m.
Manning said she also saw someone taping the event in a back corner of the lecture hall.
Department of Statistics and Probability Chairperson Habib Salehi said Melfi took the incident calmly and said he has no reason to believe the assailants were students. He said he contacted all instructors teaching in large lecture halls to be "on guard."
"We hope this was just a joke," Salehi said. "We are proud to have Melfi here. He's very dedicated. It's a shame to see this happen.
"This is unacceptable. I was shocked that somebody would go to any class, especially a large class like Melfi's."
