Last week was a complete whirlwind for me. It was Fall Conference at BYU, which is like back-to-school week for faculty and staff (students started school the day after Labor Day). I didn’t have any huge responsibilities but I did have to work long hours helping with our college breakfast and Fall Meeting. In the midst of it all, I hired a new student and was relieved our alumni magazine was printed in time for all our staff to receive them in their packets.
My job has a lot of different facets to it and when I was hired, I was most excited to be the editor our alumni magazine…until I saw last year’s edition of Connections. The articles were long, dry, and scholarly with more footnotes than I ever attributed during my entire time as a student. I hate writing research papers and I truly wondered how I would get through it!
Fortunately, the assistant dean was open to my suggestion of having it be less meaty and more informational, inspirational and even humorous in places (I introduced a fun section called “Elevator Eavesdropping” where we published funny conversations we overheard in the elevator of our 12-story building such as this one from the dean:
After pushing the sixth-floor elevator button for a student.
Dean Ogles: So, are you headed to the Geography Department?
Student: Yes. What’s on the ninth floor?
Dean Ogles: The dean’s office.
Student: Are you in trouble?
Dean Ogles: No, I’m the dean.
Student: That’s awkward.
All was going smashingly until we realized a select few of the hundreds we printed had a few blank pages so it was super fun to spend one afternoon at Mail Services to go through every. Single. Copy.
We found four that had the error and I’m still unsure how many faculty received the “golden ticket” magazines but as luck would have it, one of the professors who was featured received one of them…and it was his story that was omitted.
My print and publications contact was dumbfounded. “We’ve never had any thing like this happen before.”
Welcome to my world, BYU.
I'm a Canadian-born mom of two, former Denver Post columnist, family travel writer, editor of MileHighMamas.com and 9News contributor. Expert on all things Utah, Denver, family and travel. Lover of laughter and life. Happily married to a man obsessed with growing The Great Pumpkin. 