Reporter's Notebook

"People are obviously getting the message that they shouldn't wait around. This is an exaggerated version of what the system was supposed to produce."

--Margaret Homas, an English professor at Yale University, commenting on news that up to five junior professors in Harvard's English Department may leave for other schools by the fall.

"It's a decimation of the junior faculty ranks...It's staggering that this many people would consider leaving."

--Associate Professor of English Joseph A. Boone, who, denied tenure last year, will leave Harvard at the end of this semester.

"Most people who have been junior faculty at Harvard have left. This doesn't mean that Harvard necessarily suffers...We would be concerned if we regularly promoted people from within. As people leave, people come. It's that sort of flux."

--Helen H. Vendler, Harvard's Kenan professor of English and American literature and language.

"For one thing, the room is too small as it is. More machines would make the space too crowded. Also, junk food is not good for you. I think buying it is a silly way for a college student to spend money."

--David Kessler '93, the only one of 176 Canaday residents contacted who refused to sign a petition to bring the Yard dorm a new candy machine.

Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet nor gloom of night...Cambridge City Councillors Jonathan S. Myers and Edward N. Cyr had plenty of serious business to deal with at this week's council meeting. But they also took the time for a not-so-serious innovation--the Golden Mail Sack Award. The council established the Award this week to honor the best tale of mismanaged mail at a Cambridge Post Office. Winners so far include a woman who recently recieved one piece of mail postmarked in 1985, and another Cantabridgian who recieved half of a letter one week and the other half the next. Among the prizes for this already dubious distinctions is a night on the town with Cambridge City Clerk Joseph E. Connarton.

"I see myself as another Martin Luther King, as another Jesse Jackson-type person. I want to integrate the message of the bible into public and social life."

--The Rev. Art A. Hall '93, who at 19 is already an associate minister of the Union Baptist Church in Cambridge.

"If we didn't do just what we did before, it would be an admission that what we did was wrong."

--Edward Hershey, Colby College's director of public affairs, telling why his school decided to participate in annual overlap meetings to exchange information about financial aid.

"Whether someone should proceed, they do so at their own peril."

--Joseph C. Krovisky, Justice Department spokesperson, discussing participation in the overlap meetings, which are now said to be the focus of a massive federal antitrust investigation.

"If [I received] incorrect information, I am very angry."

--Leverett House Master John E. Dowling '57, upon learning that Harvard had not already begun to test its own drinking water, as he had been told.