An exam in civil engineering is an unlikely situation in which to encounter the examining professor emerging, soaked to the skin, from an improvised shower stall.
For Alessandro Del Bufalo, a civil engineering lecturer at Rome's La Terza University, this was all in a day's work until some students called the police to accuse him of indecent exposure.
For a two-day exam, 500 students had to design a micro-bathroom to be sold as a DIY kit. Several students produced full-scale prototypes, which they set up in the courtyard and connected to a water supply.
Professor Del Bufalo, who is known for his eccentricities and "interesting" lecturing style, took off everything except his swimming trunks and took a shower in each. He then walked to his car and took out a few flasks of wine and offered his students a drink.
He also distributed 500 T-shirts, produced at his own expense, as a souvenir of the exam.
While most of his students think the professor is great, others are not amused at being at the mercy of his whims and caprices. It was these critics, it is thought, who called the police, twice, over his "test drives" of the shower stalls.
The police, who came, twice, found no crime was being committed and were chased away each time by the dripping professor.
A university spokesman said the only limit - if any - on lecturers' freedom was common sense.
Professor Del Bufalo said: "I did not 'take a shower'. I tested what my students had invented. I have a wonderful relationship with them. I believe they are rough diamonds that I must try to reveal in all their splendour. It is not surprising that among 500 there are two idiots who call the police."
The event gave the Italian press a field day, with "naked professor" headlines.