On the Record
The October 13 issue of the Wheaton Record blares this headline: "Assistant provost to retire after 35 years."If this doesn’t ring any bells, let me continue.
Ward Kriegbaum has announced his retirement after 35 years of faithful service. Hired in 1971 as Associate Dean of Students, the name Dean Kriegbaum struck fear into the heart of every malcontent, Artful Dodger and bad actor on campus.
I, being none and all of these, was never in Dean Kriegbaum’s office but was afraid nonetheless. Many of my friends were not nearly as artful as me and ended up finishing their undergraduate studies in places like Colorado State University, Ft. Wayne Community College and DuPage Technical Institute.
With so many of my closest accomplices gone I had to enlist the services of rival wise guys to accompany my forays into the shadier side of campus culture. Og will remember one such epic adventure.
Shortly after that escapade Dean Kriegbaum decided to take a somewhat more academic direction in his career at the Harvard of Christendom. Describing that period Kriegbaum stated, "Many students...were struggling with faith issues and how one lived out their Christian faith. This resulted in students acting out behaviorally in ways which were not in adherence to the Pledge." Kriegbaum says the campus atmosphere has since changed. "It’s much more positive," he says.
All of us here at Peter’s Ashtray wish Mr. Ward Kriegbaum the best.
posted by Yakimaniac at 11:51 PM
12 Comments:
You know what? I never ended up in Ward's office. It was always Dean Nelson for us. I think he was a little easier to deal with than Ward. Deep down, I'm sure he liked us. Our meetings with Dean Nelson always ended the same way. After we convincingly denied everything he would sigh deeply and look sadly disappointed and then he would say, "Look, just make sure you don't hurt anybody and don't damage any school property!" We, of course, assured him we would never be involved in ANYTHING that could have either of those results.
I was never invited into the office of any of these fine people. My chief transgression would have involved tobacco products, but even with this I proved to be invisible. A girl named Nancy Kraftson once came running up to my car which was parked in front of Traber Dorm to remind me that you couldn't smoke cigarettes, "put it out" she muttered as she hit me over the head with her umbrella. Why wasn't she called up to the office for physical abuse?
It may interest you to know that because of Shilohman and his nefarious ruffians, Dean Nelson was threatening to quit. That's why Ward, as Assistant Dean, performed the duties essential and identical to the Dean's. He says in the Record that those days were very difficult. He is further quoted as saying that because of Vietnam there was lots of student cynicism and lack of respect for authority. It is obvious that he does not look back fondly to those days.
And all this time I thought it was just good clean fun!
My motto, "never get caught," kept me from ever meeting Del or Ward on a disciplinary basis. There was that time that Pres. A. caught me driving the wrong way around Blanchard, but to my knowledge no record exists of that incident. For most of the other exciting capers, the Statute of Limitations has not yet run, so I will not commit them to ether-print.
I did spend a fair amount of time not learning Spanish with Kriegbaum the younger.
I never got caught either. There is no evidence of any wrongdoing or pledge breaking on my record. For me it was always a case of Dean Nelson "rounding up the usual suspects;" i.e. The Boys
I hate to say it, but when I first saw this picture I swear I thought it was going to be a nice, heart-warming story about a retarded man. (Remind me not to ever pose with my sport shirt buttoned to the top.)
I suppose a man dedicated to making sure all the students kept the "pledge" is not that far off?
You know, when I studied "Deviant Sociology" in college, we were told Wheaton had one of the highest alcoholism rates in the nation. I kid you not! The reason given was that the students had nothing to use as a model for drinking normally.
To this day, I have no idea how the professor came up with this "fact.” It seems preposterous to me. Unless the two weeks I famously visited the campus caused the alcoholic rate to jump dramatically for the entire year. I suppose that's possible.
Still, we also had this "correct modeling" problem at Westmont. 'Let's see...Does the normal drinker have a glass of wine with dinner...Or, is it one gallon of wine FOR dinner?' I believe some of us decided to error on the side of choking to death on our own vomit.
I think Garrison Keeler put it best when he said, "My people don't drink alcohol...Or, they just climb inside a bottle and howl at the moon. There's no middle for us."
I always thought this phenomenon was due to the fact that many of us have to have 9 stiff drinks just to get passed the guilt. Only with the 10th drink on do you start to feel anything. But, perhaps that's just me.
You know, my nephew tells me they don't call it the pledge anymore. I forgot the exact new word, something like "covenant," but it sounded way more serious. "Pledge" just sounds like something begging to be broken. The new word was quite foreboding...Scary even. I'm not sure even I would have the courage to break it.
I too heard that stat about Wheaton. I also heard that WC has a higher divorce rate than the national average. All bunk I say! Urban legends before there was an Internet.
As for the question whether you could not, not keep the Community Covenant as opposed to the Pledge, I think you would do as least as well as we did. (Not, not keeping the Pledge I mean.)
Upon arriving at the Harvard of Christendom, the trouble-making baton was passed to us freshman by the soon-to-be-departing seniors. In this case the baton was a sack full of keys to every door on the college campus. Alas, they were on to us and all the locks had been changed. Undoubtedly, this was the good Lord’s way of keeping me out of Kriegbaum’s office.
Excellent point YB. For me it was the soon-to-be Mrs. Yak who kept me from all manner of shenanigans after my freshman year.
When I couldn't find the Yaks at their assigned location, manning the table for arriving parents, at 3:15 on Friday, I decided to go for a walk around campus BY MYSELF as usual. (YB of SC and Sag Sis had returned to their motel room to "rest.") So as I wandered I walked into what used to be MSC in order to pick up a Record. On my way out I was confronted by a man with a sport shirt buttoned to the top and I recognized him immediately from your post, even though I hadn't seen Kriegbaum for over 30 years! It WAS a frightening experience. I almost blurted out something like, "But I have an alibi!"
I want to hear the story about the Wheaton teacher who did something like video tape nude male students for fun.
I remember really enjoying the story in my own sick yet demented way. But I can't remember the details. Please tell me again!
AND WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL ME WHY YOU GUYS SEEM AFRAID TO USE THE WORD 'WHEATON' WHEN YOU REFER TO YOUR ALMA MATER? WHAT'S WITH THESE SILLY CODE WORDS "THE HARVARD OF RETARDED" OR WHATEVER IT IS YOU USE? WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? WHAT? YOU DON'T SEE ME CALLING WESTMONT THE HARVARD OF THE DIM WITTED AND SLOW TO CATCH ON." SAY IT! WHEATON. WHEATON. WHEATON. SEE, I SAID IT AND NOBODY HAS SMOTE ME ABOUT THE HEAD AND KNEES!
NOW, YOU SAY IT. WHEATON! (AND NOT THE GIRLS IVY LEAGUE SCHOOL.)
And you don't have those horrible wobbly letters to type in before publishing. Yet, you're not getting span comments. Can I change to this too? I despise those letters with all my little, tortured heart!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! WHAT ARE YOU GIVING OUT TONIGHT?
Dear SC,
Sign in to your blog. Click on SETTINGS. Click on COMMENTS. Go down to WORD VERIFICATION and change to "NO". Those hateful tormenting letters will no longer appear.
Some of us still have official responsibilities at the "Harvard of Christian schools" and would like to finish out our term at the Evangelical Mecca before being asked to stepped down. What is this "Wheaton" you're referring to?
I've never heard the videotape story you mention (thankfully) and trust it's an urban legend.
It's little Hersey bars, Sugar daddy boxes, and Caramel apple lollipops at the Yaks household. Mainly because I work in the world of dentistry and want to do my part to boost the year-end bottom line. Sadly, we're not in a highly populated area and probably won't have any trick-or-treaters, which just means Mr. Yak and I will polish it all off before Thanksgiving.
Mrs. Yak
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