Perceptions of student/professor competence and the reasons for a "chilly" classroom were investigated through a survey of 2,042 students from seventy-seven liberal arts colleges. Chi-square and Mann-Whitney tests showed statistically significant different responses by gender for all the questions. The perceptions of competence survey showed mixed results. With regards to professor competence, female students were much more likely to believe that male professors were viewed as more competent and treated with more respect. With regards to reasons for a "chilly" classroom, neither female nor minority students cited gender or race as a primary reason. In fact, the three most frequent reasons given by all students (regardless of race or gender) were difficulty of course content, professor's teaching style/personality, and personality style of classmates. (Contains 14 tables.)