From the moment you walk in to 322, one of the room’s most prominent features is Mike Beck’s collection of over 100 Pez dispensers.

“I don’t remember exactly when it was. It might have been, like, my second or third year of teaching, so the mid-90s. A student gave me a Pez machine out of the blue. I don’t remember which one it was, but I decided to use it immediately, to reward students for getting answers in class,” Beck said.

All shapes, sizes and colors, an abundance of Pez dispensers peer down from high shelves, stand in orderly rows in a glass cabinet, and pile up in a large desk drawer. From a group of eight nearly identical Santa Pez’s to a boxed set of the band Kiss, Beck has more Pez dispensers than most people have ever seen in one place. In fact, Beck says that his students have brought their parents in on more than one occasion, simply to admire his collection. Needless to say, his tradition of giving the candy away for correct answers has been a popular one.

“Well sometimes, and this has happened more than once, a group of students might have an argument over who had the correct answer, and as a group they’ll decide to take their one little Pez and divide it amongst three or four other people, and then everyone’s happy.”