Replying to a message of Ardith Hinton to James Bradley:

 JB>>  you're just not strong in the name-face association
 JB>>  department?

 AH>            Right.  If I have a class list in front of me & I can
 AH> narrow down the possibilities by noticing who's holding a saxophone,
 AH> for example, I can learn to associate names with faces quite easily. 
 AH> In other classes consisting of thirty- six students, several of whom
 AH> have the same first name & all of whom are holding the same textbook,
 AH> I'm doing well if I can manage it before Christmas... (sigh).

Back when I was an under-grad we had a prof who was amazing.  Each class 
met on alternating weekends for a total of six sessions, each 8+ hours long.
Mid term exam on the middle weekend, term papers and presentations due plus the
final exam on the last weekend.  On the first day we spent an hour or so introducing
ourselves - and thereafter he had all 30 or so of us and could call on any of us by
name.  We even changed our seats around coming back from lunch and he immediately
caught on - but he still had us by name.  David Cordova from the University of Texas
(he part-timed weekends working for Southern Illinois University at Carbondale).

--- FleetStreet 1.19+