William and Mary is a small college that emphasizes close teacher-student relations. Colleen Kennedy, an English professor who leads the faculty assembly, said, ''You're more likely to encourage creativity and inquiry that we want in our students when the lines are more clearly drawn.'' The rare cases of true love begun in the classroom are hardly outweighed by the potential for such romances to poison the teaching atmosphere and ruin a student's life. ''As one of my colleagues put it,'' she said, ''love can wait.''