WILL POTTER
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While reporting for The Chronicle of Higher Education, I frequently wrote brief, tongue-in-cheek items for the Short Subjects section. Here are a few favorites:
"The Hot Line," The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 31, 2002, 8.
By WILL POTTER
After 50 years, a small Bible college in Kentucky may finally exorcise the mark of the beast from its campus.
The Kentucky Mountain Bible College's telephone numbers have the prefix 666, which the Book of Revelation identifies as "the number of the beast" and some Christians consider a herald of Satan, eternal damnation, and the end of the world. Not stuff this conservative, nondenominational college wants to be associated with.
"KMBC would like to change our number so callers would not have these concerns and to avoid any confusion or the appearance of evil," says Tom Lorimer, the college's executive vice president.
"We are not suggesting that the phone company is somehow connected with the mark of the beast or the Antichrist," he quickly adds.
Henrietta M. Griffith, who has taught Christian education at the 85-student college for 50 years, says she has gotten used to the phone number but wouldn't mind having it changed.
"It's a number you don't expect," Ms. Griffith says. "When you give your number to somebody, they say, 'Oh, my goodness!'"
The number was more a matter of bad luck than devilish intentions. Everyone in Breathitt County, Ky., had the 666 prefix until about a year ago, when the available numbers ran out and phone companies began using 693.
Six months ago, college administrators requested the new prefix from Access Point, the telephone company that serves the college.
Kaye Davis, Access Point's general counsel, says no one else has complained about the diabolical digits, but the company is trying to accommodate the college with a new number.
"The problem," she says, is that college officials have been unable "to find a number that is available that they feel is memorable enough."
"Getting the Nod," The Chronicle of Higher Education, February 7, 2003, 6.
By WILL POTTER
Heads don't roll in Robert C. Maxson's office at California State University at Long Beach. They bob.
And bob. And bob. And bob.
The university's athletics department had 1,700 bobblehead dolls made in the president's likeness to give away last week at a men's basketball game against California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo.
"Boy, that's a lot of bobbleheads," Mr. Maxson says.
President Maxson didn't learn of his tiny twins until rumors had already spread across the campus. The athletics department, which is using bobbleheads as promotional giveaways, last fall modeled its first doll after a member of the women's volleyball team. The next person to be immortalized had to be the university's most public persona, the president, says Mike Mulryan, a department spokesman. United Parcel Service paid for the presidential dolls, which feature UPS logos on their bases.
The department ordered three times as many miniature Maxsons as the volleyball doll. Fans tried to get hold of the bobbleheads days before the game but were turned away.
"It's already becoming a hot commodity on campus," says Mr. Mulryan.
Mr. Maxson was surprised but also honored. He sees the bobbleheads as reflecting his good relationship with students, he says, not as undignified caricatures.
Bobblehead dolls, popular in the 1950s and '60s, have been bobbing back onto the scene of late. Now everyone from baseball players to President Bush to the Osbournes has a bobblehead. A university-president doll, though, may be a first.
"When something is successful, everyone jumps on the bandwagon," says Tom Hultman, managing editor of Tuff Stuff magazine, a guide to sports memorabilia. "TV characters, politicians, college presidents. But those aren't really collectible."
"We All Fall Down," The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 10, 2003, 9.
By WILL POTTER
Most college students have a hard time getting out of bed in the morning. Some students at the State University of New York at Buffalo seem to have a hard time staying in.
Five students have been injured falling or jumping out of their bunk beds this semester, and administrators are concerned. They typically hear of only one incident a year.
"People don't seem to be used to the height," says Joseph J. Krakowiak, director of residence halls. Two of the students jumped down in a rush to answer telephones, one tripped getting out of bed, and two don't know what happened.
The university has acted swiftly to curb bedtime injuries. It will spend about $40,000 to bolt guardrails onto 600 beds. A special committee has been convened to study the problem, and students were sent an e-mail reminder that the beds can be dangerous.
At least one Buffalo graduate has little sympathy for today's students. "Four times this month? My roommates and I would beat that in a week," says Andrew Carle, who is now an assistant professor of assisted-living administration at George Mason University. "I had one of those beds. Sometimes you fell off, especially on 'two Molsons for a buck' night."
Beds had guardrails when he was a student, he says, but students removed them and put them in the closet. "It was fairly routine," he adds, "to pick somebody up and chuck them back into bed."
