What’s left of the 𝘋𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘨.

Long, long ago I used to put together the Bethany College Dialog and the Dialog’s website. Took me hours; I was just then learning how HTML worked. Now, casually poking around the web, I find there’s nothing left of it but my introduction to the website, which had to be taken down because some AG twit back east got his panties in a twist over the word “boobs.” But not before Rev. Tony snatched it. (There is no more website, by the way.)

If you don’t know what the Dialog is, it’s the Bethany College student newspaper. If you didn’t know Bethany College had a student newspaper, that’s because last year the editor dropped the ball. Talk to him about it.

I became editor by stumbling into it. I had been editor of the Solano College Tempest, an assistant editor-in-chief at the CSU Sacramento State Hornet, and my previous job had been production editor at The Dixon Newspaper. Now that I was back at school, I figured I could help out at the campus newspaper. So I stopped by, met him, and offered to help.

Soon after, the editor realized he couldn’t devote enough time to the paper, so he stepped down and gave the job to his assistant. The assistant decided he couldn’t devote enough time to it either. But he wanted the scholarship that goes along with the job, so he offered me the job of “co-editor.” I would edit the copy and attend the Senate meetings, he would do layout, and we’d split the title and scholarship. He soon discovered that I was much faster at layout and editing than he was, and that I had an “unreasonable” work ethic—I wouldn’t stop working on the paper until it was done. (It’s an old habit I picked up from being a professional.) So he quit too… but he still asked for his cut of the scholarship. We pro-rated it. It wasn’t a big sum then, but every little bit helps.

Next semester, I scared the crap out of my tiny newspaper staff by announcing that the Dialog was going to become a weekly.

“We don’t have enough news,” they argued.

“Yes we do,” I argued back; “we just haven’t been covering it.”

I switched to photocopies (we had a tiny budget, it was much cheaper than offset printing, and we needed a new laser printer) and put together the publication schedule. The staff quit, with two exceptions—my music columnist, Rob, and my religion columnist, David. That left the rest of the writing and most of the photography to me. Out of pure stubbornness, I did it all myself (and participated in the Senate meetings) and miraculously managed to hold on to my GPA.

The next year I decided to take Hermeneutics, so I had to be reasonable and trim the schedule down to every other week. There was also the added inconvenience of our Dean of Students, Rev. Marla Campbell, who insisted on reading every issue before it was distributed. (The editor before me had created some controversy with a regular Dialog feature called “Out of Context.” It consisted of quoting people out of context, and the quotes were usually picked because they were embarrassing. I deemed the feature un-Christian and removed it. Later editors were less Christian and brought it back.) Not that there was anything to censor—in the semester that followed, the only real concerns Marla had were that the font on Rob’s header was too Goth, and that the new religion columnist (my friend Rick) was too Eastern Orthodox for an Assemblies of God school. But she was ridiculously busy, as most deans are. Waiting for her approval often pushed deadlines back a few days.

That next semester, Hermeneutics 2 made even twice a month difficult. So I decided to step down. My assistant editor Karen became editor, and I spent my senior year getting schoolwork done, spending time with my girlfriend, and graduating. I went on to become the managing editor of another newspaper… until I stumbled into this teaching thing I’m now so interested in.

So why don’t I do something about the Dialog? Well, in spite of being outrageously busy in my program, I am the faculty adviser. But before you get the idea that this title actually means something, it only means that my job is to advise. In other words, if the editor wants to ask my advice, I’m available. If people sign up for units to go along with being on staff, I determine the grades. Other than that, the position has no power. ’Cause if faculty advisers did have such power, it would no longer be a student newspaper. The adviser would really be running the show, and we don’t want that. (Well, the students don’t. The administration wouldn’t mind so much.)

And what it also means is that I can’t really do anything about it if the editor drops the ball. If he signed up for units, I could flunk him, and that’s all. The Senate can replace him, but it didn’t. And you didn’t know anything about it all year because there wasn’t a Dialog to report it.

(And yes, I know it’s supposed to be spelled Dialogue. I didn’t name it.)