In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, why do the students want his attention?

Ok, I've done some of my own research.

I think the joke is that Indy is an adventurer (albeit, a scholarly one), and that he isn't cut out for the day-to-day bureaucracy and paperwork of academia. They're a necessary evil of his job, but one that he'd rather avoid.

His secretary, Irene, says:

                     IRENE
       Dr. Jones, I'm SO glad you're back. 
       Your mail is on your desk. Here are 
       your phone messages. This is your 
       appointment schedule. And these term 
       papers *still* haven't been graded!

Back at school, Indy is immediately overwhelmed with paperwork. What's more, I looked at the original script, by Jeffrey Boam, and I discovered the following:

Students once again CLAMOR for his attention: 
"Doctor Jones!" "Wait, Doctor Jones!" "My grade!" "My term paper!"

Instead of dealing with his irate students, he makes up a ridiculous scheme (whereby poor Irene has to try and decide who should be seen first) and then jumps out his office window.

Look. If you've been a professor, you don't even blink at this scene. It seems, based on the time of year, like this is at the beginning of the semester, although oddly some of the student requests seem like end of term things (like the paper).

However, go to a faculty office, of a professor who has office hours and teaches a class with a lot of students (or an advisor and professor, like me). I can't walk the 60 steps from my office to the bathroom without being stopped in a rapid fire of questions: Dr H, did you get my email? Can you add me to that class? Did we have homework? Can you tell me where to get my book? Are you sure I can't take that class? Do you know my ID number? (I am not making any of these up). In fact. Dr. Jones' response is the one that many of us wish: that we could just climb out the window and sneak away. Dang it, my office window doesn't open. And seriously, a secretary? Oh, the good old days that none of us can remember, when academic departments had budgets with actual money in them and apparently staff galore (I suspect this is nostalgia re-writing actual history to some extent, but we can dream, can't we?)

This scene is not indicative of Dr. Jones' teaching competence or not, necessarily; it in fact is reasonable that he'd say he could see every student in turn, and equally realistic that he'd despair at getting through the line. Again, I've been putting my key in the door to lock up, hurrying to get to a rehearsal on time, when a student says "I just have a quick question" and it takes five minutes to ask and then there are three other things and oh hang on, let me find my laptop and turn it on and show you...and all the while something inside you is trying to scream...Sorry, was this too emotional? Anyway, that is what it looks like from inside academia.

Well I am just explaining it like it seemed to me. There are two possible reasons I can see.

1) I think, while Indiana was teaching in the class, the students did not know about his previous days adventure. But then his friend Marcus Brody entered the class and Indiana talked to him about the recovery of the golden cross. As soon as the students left the class, they might have got the news about their teacher's adventure. So they decided to stay and talk to and get the autograph of their famous teacher. There are two ways, I am guessing, they came to know about it.

a) They might have got the news from anybody inside the school.

b) They were eavesdropping on Indiana and Marcus's conversation from outside the class, because Indiana met them just outside the class.

2) There may be another explanation. The result of any exam in the school was out on that day and the students came to know about it. So they were murmuring outside the classroom out of excitement. Maybe Indiana was going to declare the result. That is why he wanted to see everybody.

lrene, put everybody's name
on a list...
and l'll see each and
every one of them in turn!