Professor Knight

**Professor Derek Knight** is a character from the 2013 film Monsters University.

## Background

### Personality

Professor Knight is shown to be a firm but fair teacher, although he puts great emphasis on the nuances of scaring through his teachings. He wants to make sure his students are well-educated and are fully ready to be scarers, he therefore commends those who work hard (such as Mike) and looks down on those who don't utilize scaring to the best of their ability (such as Sulley).

### Physical Appearance

Professor Knight is a monster whose design resembles a dinosaur, and he has orange skin with a yellow underbelly, black claws, and wears glasses with a white shirt and tie.

## Film Appearances

### Monsters University

Professor Knight introduces the new class of monsters to Scaring 101 at the beginning of the semester; particularly, he advocates that he has high expectations for the students to take scaring seriously. Suddenly, Dean Hardscrabble arrives in the class, startling Knight, to inform the students of the program's crucial final exam and the consequence of getting removed from the program should they fail. Once she leaves, Knight recollects himself and opens the class to a discussion question, which one of his students, Mike Wazowski, is about to answer before being interrupted by the arrival of Sulley into the classroom. Learning that Sulley is the son of Bill Sullivan, an accomplished scarer, Professor Knight praises having a Sullivan in his class and tells the students they can learn something from Sulley, much to Mike's frustration.

As the semester goes on, Knight switches his approval from Sulley to Mike: Mike is doing extremely well on the course's tests and practices due to the fact he takes Scaring seriously and puts in passionate efforts to become a Scarer. Meanwhile, Sulley's academic performance is falling since he doesn't take the material seriously or even bother learning anything he doesn't already know, towards which Knight expresses disappointment by telling Sully "One frightening face does not a scarer make, Mr. Sullivan." Once the students reach the final exam with Hardscrabble present, Knight is shown looking forward to Mike's performance. But an argument between Sulley and Mike occurs before Mike's turn, which gets Hardscrabble's prized scream canister broken. Although Knight tries to speak on behalf of Mike, Hardscrabble kicks both students out of the scaring program.

Shortly after Oozma Kappa wins the Scare Games, Professor Knight congratulates Sulley on his team's victory as he looks forward to having Sulley back in the program; his statement guilt-trips Sulley into confessing to Knight and Hardscrabble that he cheated in the game's final round, causing Hardscrabble to expel Sulley from the university.

During the credits, a scarer card of Professor Knight is shown, revealing that he was once a scarer at Fear Corporation before retiring and becoming a teacher at Monsters University instead.

## Television Appearances

### Monsters at Work

Professor Knight appears in the first episode of the series to oversee Tylor Tuskmon's Scaring Finals test and hand him his job acceptance letter from Monsters Inc. signed by Henry J. Waternoose III. Unfortunately, this coincides with the immediate aftermath of the film's ending and the beginning of Monsters Inc.'s switch to laugh power, rendering Tylor's degree and Scarer training useless.