...you never get a second chance...

Image management is always a stressed field in business, politics, and really anything else. So I began thinking about how people see Houghton. What's the first thing, the first mental note you make about houghton? Okay, so the first thing you notice is probably the really purple sign on route 19. But the second thing is the roller coaster of a ride your car gets due to the eight and a half inch difference between route 19 and the beginning of Genesse street.

"...oh, what a lovely sign, it looks very purp- HOLY COW WE'RE BEING ATTACKED BY TERRORISTS! ...oh, it's just the road, maybe they need our money more than we thought"

then of course there's the mine field in the road leading up to the gym, guaranteed to pop a tire or your money back (restrictions apply, purchase necessary, see inside wallet for details). If you are not a frequent visitor of the gym, there are (I kid you not) more than a dozen, each approaching a solid foot deep. I used to try to dodge them all, but now i just drive on the hill, it's much safer.

As we're striving to improve our enrollment to 1,400 students, perhaps letting them arive at the college before giving them reason to turn around and go home is a good idea. And remember, you never get a second chance to make a first pothole - er, impression.

And the award for worst chapel goes to...

...the SGA awards chapel. SGA stands for Student Government Association but perhaps a better name would be the Spiritualy God Awful. Most people are smart enough to avoid the awards chapel. I, however, was unaware that the chapel i was attending was the awards chapel and paid dearly for my mistake

You know its bad when you need a 7 minute disclaimer on everything else you plan on doing for the rest of chapel. You know its really bad when its Kate Hamilton doing the disclaiming (a bad idea in itself) To summarize the disclaimer, they're giving out awards but dont know what the qualifications they're looking for are, they just know that people have done things that sound like they fit with the title of the award.

What's worse is that they take from an extremely small minority to offer the award. Blind choosing would yeild better results. For example, for being the best communicator, the Commissioner of Communications was chosen. whoa, way to go out of the box, but the only reason she fits the bill is because of her title. (nothing against her, but there are plenty of better communicators out there, they just dont have a fancy title)

If you really want to hand out awards, give it to the most qualified person, taking many more people into account and no, title isn't a qualification. Neither is Kate Hamilton.