Category Archives: college

college, dress, prom

Evolution, Or Not?

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Earlier this year, I watched with amusement as people sent in their entries for worst prom dress in one of those contests that seemingly permeated the blogosphere. You can peruse a roundup of the entries in one such contest over at She Just Walks Around With It. Go ahead, we’ll wait for you to finish gasping and laughing. Remember to leave your Coke firmly planted on the table to avoid the dreaded keyboard spew.

What brought this subject to mind tonight is the fact that there was no entry category for really bad male costume. There was also no category for worst pastel background, although there was a groundswell for worst wallpaper background for one entry.  This weekend I was cleaning up some pictures while hunting for some other pictures and came across visual evidence of my own sins. So I figured I would confess to my sartorial sins of the past and also illustrate how heading off to college leads to evolution {*grin*}

Here is a picture of L and I at our senior prom in the spring of 1972:

A few words in my defense are in order. This was in the era when public high schools had dress codes. Ours required that all side-burns extend no lower than the ear lobe, that hair had to stay atop the ear and above the collar, and no beards or mustaches were allowed.  With all that said, now days you would seldom see a square and circle patterned tie with paisley striped shirt. You will also note that when you have a 20 inch neck, you really need extra long ties or they come out looking comically short. Do you like the brownish gray Hush Puppy shoes with gray slacks and a black belt?  Note that I have an incipient 5 o’clock shadow despite shaving only a couple of hours prior to the picture.

On the other hand, L shows great class and elegance. Note the elbow length gloves and maxi dress. To this day I have a great fondness for all the empire waisted dresses of the time just because I saw L in so many of them. I will always wonder why a classy lady like L hangs out with a slob like me. No accounting for female taste I guess.

Now for the evolution.

A few months later I was home for Christmas break and spending my mornings looking like this:

Think I look a little under the weather from partying the night before? Notice the beard starting to fill in? I have worn a beard ever since. It has been close to 38 years since I last saw my chin (and I plan to keep it that way). It also looks like I am perusing a comic book as well. Fitting.

Do you have similar before and after evidence of your evolution as you headed off to college? Are you man (or woman) enough to share with us?

college, Ives, theater, trotsky

On the Other Hand

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I had to appear early this morning for a teleconference about some emergency preparation stuff and had a chance to visit with the local community college president while we waited for the conference to start. He was also in attendance at the play last night. Given my quasi-review of David Ives ‘ All in the Timing of yesterday, I thought some of you might be interested in his reaction to the production.

He was able to give a different prospective since he had his grade/middle school aged son and daughter with him last night. His first comment was that although he was sure a lot of the literary, scientific, and mathematical references went right by them, they still thought it was a funny. They just interpreted the humor on a different level. For example, they took the ice axe stuck in the head of Trotsky as sight gag – and thought it was funny. I suspect that may be the mark of a good playwright – he/she can entertain and get the message across to a wide range of audience backgrounds. It is a skill I have often admired but seldom evinced.

The president himself had a similar reaction to the play as I did. He *knew* there was something he should remember about Trotsky’s death, but couldn’t quite connect it in his mind. He was planning to look up the details this morning after our teleconference. I pointed him to the Time article and left it at that. We’ll see what he has to say on Monday since I have another meeting he will be at then.

On the other hand, he was completely taken aback by one of the actors in the production. He has the actor in a philosophy class he is teaching this term. (He decided to teach a class this term just to be sure he had a handle on the issues his faculty face day-to-day.) He said “the young man has never said a word in class discussions and even one on one, getting him to talk is like pulling eye-teeth.” Thus he was shocked to discover this young man starring as Trotsky in “Variations on the Death of Trotsky “ and as Alan in “The Philadelphia “. Both very outgoing, voluble, and extroverted roles. It yielded a completely different view of the young man’s personality and abilities.

Other than that the day was one of usual hassles. It was a good day to be inside since the NWS Wind Warning was in effect again. I’m convinced that there must have been a change in policy, they didn’t use to issue warnings for 40-50 mph winds. The cold front dropping in from the north was evidently in a hurry. My own view is that it could have detoured to Nebraska and I would not have been disappointed. At least it is supposed to be back into the 50’s by Sunday.

accreditation, college, community

Accreditation

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This morning the accreditation team was in town for the local community college. As a local politician (and long time member of the college’s Foundation board) I was invited to the community interview part.  Pretty much the standard thing.

College accreditation is one of those “voluntary” things that really isn’t.  Almost all federal monies and scholarships require the accreditation.  So I have a deep suspicion that there are very few colleges who choose to not be accredited and make any claims to legitimacy.
Most of the accreditation process is verification – does the institution really have the facilities and faculty they claim, do they offer the programs they claim, etc.  But another part is advice for improvement.  After all, accreditation committees are fountains of experienced experts that make recommendations for future improvement.  Sort of like having a team of expert hired guns available for free.  And a final part is “challenges” in which the evaluators point out things that they think must be fixed if the institution is to remain viable.

The process is well organized and useful to the institution and to the consumer.  After all, you really would like some assurance that juniors education is really what it claimed to be. But the community interview part always makes me wonder about some things. Do community members (who are invited by the college to be interviewed by the accreditation team) ever really stand up and rip into the college?  It doesn’t seem like it would happen often, does it?  How bad would the college’s relations with the local community have to be to cause that kind of a rift.  And how insane would the community members have to be to down-mark one of the prime economic engines in their community? In every such meeting I have been a part of, the hard part is to get the community members to stop gushing forth on how good the college is for the community. I suspect that this is even more prevalent is a rural area like this where the college is a major community icon.
In my discussion with the leader of the accreditation team after the interview, I asked him if he ever ran into the rabid anti-college community faction during these reviews.  He surprised me greatly when he said that it happened from time to time.  Sort of like shooting your own foot off. Really makes you wonder at times, doesn’t it. Were the community invites issued by someone at the college with an axe to grind? Was it a case of bad student/townie interactions? Or are there just a whole lot of insane people running loose out there?