Sam Jenkins, a Cambridge resident who has walked his dog in the Radcliffe Yard for the past 10 years, is appointed president of Radcliffe College. "We looked everywhere, and we just couldn't find a qualified woman," explains President Bok.
October 21
In the final installment of his fiction trilogy, Professor of Law Derrick Bell devises a scheme to blow up the Harvard Coop when it won't invite him to hold a book-signing/wine and brie party there. Bell is awarded a $10 million contract by Paramount Pictures to turn the episode into a screenplay.
November 2
Harvard Dining Services puts up fuschia neon warnings to students not to eat dining hall food because it contains all the health hazards recounted on its bulletin boards last year. Business at Elsie's and Tommy's Lunch skyrockets when the restaurants start using unsaturated soybean oil on their grills and selling oat bran muffins.
November 10
With a background of experience in Washington and service already honored by Harvard, the new Kennedy School dean starts off his job offering a University professorship to a wealthy industrialist. "I'm glad Dean Meese gave me this opportunity to serve Harvard," says E. Robert Wallach.
November 18
The State Department deports the editorial staff of Padan Aram, mistaking them for an offshoot of Islamic Jihad. The Undergraduate Council grants their petition for $500 for return airfare, and hails it as a sign of the council's new commitment to campus-wide publications.
November 30
The Undergraduate Council votes to officially change its name to the Harvard-Radcliffe Liberal People's Labor Front. Party Boss Ken "Fellow Traveller" Lee '89, hired back by the council as a secretary and ideological advisor, leads the Services Committee in setting up shanties to serve as a student center in the Yard and convinces Harvard Dining Services to install four-flavored milk dispensers in the new center.
December 7
President Bush rolls painted eggs on the White House lawn during the annual Easter celebration.
December 15
In response to complaints about campus safety, Harvard installs a new voice-activated security system in each dormitory entryway. Those who wish to open a door must correctly pronounce "Nietzsche" and be able to compute the standard deviation of a set of data, which is changed nightly. "We knew the QRR would come in handy someday," says Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57.
December 27
In a shocking protest over his company's involvement in tobacco, the Big Fig Newton hangs up his green booties for good. RJR-Nabisco's new owners, the takeover giant Kohlberg, Kravitz and Roberts (a.k.a. Harvard's slush fund), fill his pointy shoes with another prominent ambassador of good will. "Indeed, it is a profound honor to assume such a prestigious post. It is a veritable step up the ladder, one might say," former Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III tells Gourmet magazine.
December 31
Due to an avalanche of campuswide publications dropped in house hallways, three students are found trapped inside their rooms since late 1988, their only contact with the world being Dial-A-Menu and the Action Man. One of the students exclaims, "What do you mean, George Bush endowed a Harvard chapter of Skull and Bones?"