"Mr. Slick"

by Dorothy Wynne

My office was in Diefendorf, and it was very nice because the first floor was arranged for advisement. There was something like 19 advisors, and we had 300 students a piece to advise. We had half-hour appointments with them. Those were the days when students had to come in and work out a schedule, which each advisor had to sign. They then went over to the gym to get their courses.

When students had to do everything by hand, they complained a lot because of the long lines. The good thing was that sometimes professors could hold a card for a favorite student so the student could get into the classes he or she wanted. They weren't supposed to do that, but they sometimes did.

Drop/add day was the hardest, because students only had this one day to run around dropping and adding classes. I still remember one of my students, a phys-ed major, who thought he was "Mr. Slick." He was running around trying to get a couple of courses. The students would sort of barter these things, and trade: "I'll give you Philosophy 101 if you'll give me Soc. 202."

So "Mr. Slick" thought he was being very clever, and he had all these philosophy courses - cards - because it was a requirement to have a philosophy course, and he thought he could trade off. It was like a kid's game. But when drop/add ended, he had five philosophy courses.

I can remember him standing there: "What am I going to do?" And I said, "You're going to take five philosophy courses." And that's what he did. He took five philosophy courses. He did quite well, actually. He was a bright kid - he just outwitted himself.