How are your Tuesday classes? The reason behind your Tuesday classes being good or bad may have to do with how well your professor bowled Monday night.

The Iowa State University Faculty Bowling League takes place Monday nights at 7:30 p.m.

The event is open to any faculty member and now, new for this year, any staff member who likes to bowl competitively or just for fun.

“Often four letter words come up,” said P.J. Hermann, Computer Science Engineering team member.

This year’s league president, Olan Farnall, professor of journalism and mass communication, said the league is trying to bring together anyone associated with the university, other than its students.

The league started in 1940 at the Memorial Union after the bowling alleys were installed in 1939.

The league now resides at Twentieth Century Bowling, 505 S. Duff Ave.

Martin Edelson, member and mascot of team Chemistry Metallurgy, said, “We started so long ago, we used to bowl on a frozen Lake LaVerne.”

Each year the league starts in early September and continues through the end of April.

Teams keep track of scores in two ways: player versus player and by overall team scores and handicaps.

Farnall said the league tries to match top players with teams that have traditionally done well.

Sixteen teams bowl two times throughout the year.

The league has individual and team awards for the winners.

The Chemistry Metallurgy team has won the league the past five of seven years.

“Some of these guys here are vicious about bowling — now we only travel in pairs,” Edelson, who is a professor at the Ames Laboratory, said.

The teams consist of eight players, usually from the same department, who rotate to allow four bowlers to compete each Monday.

Team Physical Education is the only all-female team.

“We keep it all women for the mere principle of it,” said Cindy Frederickson, academic adviser for health and human performance.

Some bowlers have been in the league for more than 30 years, while others are just beginning.

Janis Mesenbrink, who began participating in the league this year, said, “I used to just want to be a sub. Now I’m sad when I can’t bowl.”

Although bowlers want to do their best, not all teams are vicious rivals.

“The other teams support you just as much as your team does, there’s a lot of jiving back and forth,” said Ron Skrdla, ag specialist and Computer Science Engineering team member .

And because of this “jiving,” the bowling league gives faculty and staff a chance to meet cross-campus colleagues they might not see during the year.

“I wouldn’t see any of these people if it weren’t for this,” Frederickson said.

Wayne Klaiber, of team Entomology, said some faculty members concentrate on more than just the game.

“We sometimes have faculty grading tests while they bowl … students better hope [their professors] had a good night.”