June 5--Bok's Commencement address concerns the need for Harvard "to use its academic programs to have a more specific and striking effect on the world." He declines to elaborate, but mentions the K-School in passing.

The featured speaker, former Boston mayoral candidate Michael Gelber, uses his address to lay out a comprehensive plan to reduce unemployment through development of laser weapon stations on the moon. Bok is seen nodding thoughtfully.

July

The Democratic National Convention begins, amid hoopla, but proceedings are disrupted on the second day by the nationally disseminated announcement that Harvard's K-School will take on as tenured professors not just the Big Loser but all six josers of the Democratic Party nomination. Upon that news, both of the still up challenged front runners, Glenn and Mondale, Suddenly drop out of the race.

"The White House is nice, but the K-School...well.." Mondale says. Glenn adds, "Washington Who?" Bok, in interviews, notes that "The concentration of talent and power in Cambridge, which is what I need for, er, which is what I hoped would result, is very gratifying."

Other candidates follow suit, leaving only Hart, who says, "Those K-School folk aren't as smart as I am I'll stay right here." Allison, undaunted, amends the program to include the eventual loser of the November election, observing, " Flexibility is firmness."

August

The national press discovers that Nancy Reagan's domestic staff apparently pillered some of the Carter Administration's best banquet menus and recipes before the Democratic group left the White House. Anonymous sources accuse the Reagen White House of "gliding to gustatory glory on Carter's culinary casttails." The resulting "cookboakgate" scandal dominates conversations across the nation. President and Mrs. Reagan, meanwhile take off for three weeks vacation in the Philippines, to the constrnation of advisors, who fear foe the couple's safety as well as for relations with the island. Nancy Reagan tells the press that "Ron and I are open minded enough to ignore a little local unrest for the sake of such beautiful beaches." Reagan adds, "It may be a paradox, but their war is our peace."

September

September 4--The K-School erects temporary housing and announces yet another scholarly initiative for its "Defeat is Victory" program, this time aimed at Central America. Any dictator defeated by a military coup may study in Cambridge for six months.

September 12--Freshman Week starts and students get their first exposure to Dean of the Faculty Watt at opening exercises. Gazing out at the assembled Class of '88, Watt muses. "I didn't know so many WASPs had red hair--or are some of you crossbred?" The Glee Club and Radcliffe Choral Society offer a Wayne Newton medley in place of the traditional "Fair Harvard" and "The Only Man at the Radcliffe Tea." For the first time in living memory, parents and freshmen do not leave during the songs.

September 21--Reagan and Hart debate on national TV, with the incumbent calling the Coloradan "a technology-mad threat to the Good Old Days." Hart retorts, "He thinks past is future."

September 28--Unexpected military coups in Guatemala and Honduras give the K-School its first applicants to the new phase of their program.

October

October 11--In his first official move as Faculty Dean, Watt Commissions the buildings of 60 new concrete poster kiosks around the Yard "to improve communications." To complaints that such a move falls outside the Faculty's jurisdiction, Watt replies, "Oh, those rules aren't worth the dead trees they're written on." Bok backs him up. Ousted government officials from Liberia, Guyana, Nepal and Key Biscayne flock to the K-School.