13 Degrees of Separation

Superlatives are risky. When Benjamin B. Bolger declared himself the most credentialed person in modern history (The Chronicle, June 20), he was wrong. Mr. Bolger holds 11 advanced degrees. But Michael W. Nicholson has 24.

Mr. Nicholson, whose father was a third-grade dropout, finished a doctorate in education at Western Michigan University in 1977. He angled for a job in student affairs, but no one bit, and he was disheartened. So he went back to graduate school. “That seemed to be more comfortable,” he says.

He took a job as a security guard and earned an M.B.A. from Western Michigan and a master’s in library science from Wayne State University, in Detroit. Then, for 11 years, he wrote parking tickets at Western Michigan — once 420 in a single day — and took advantage of the tuition discount there, earning nine more master’s degrees, mostly in education. After that he worked as a substitute teacher and racked up more master’s degrees, in education and public administration, at Indiana University at South Bend, Oakland University, and Grand Valley State University. He regularly sent transcripts to Guinness World Records, despite its decision to discontinue the serial-student category out of concern over diploma mills.

Mr. Nicholson, 67, is pursuing two more degrees — between leading music services at rural churches and doing research on presidential assassinations and 9/11, which he thinks was an inside job. He prepares his assignments on a Smith Corona manual typewriter and doesn’t go beyond what’s asked of him. “I’m more interested in getting through the class as quickly and efficiently as possible,” he says. His mission is to earn more degrees than anyone he’s heard of, like the Indian man who Guinness officials said had 25.

Mr. Nicholson sticks to similar fields so he can double-count credits. “I don’t want to say he games the system, but he knows what he needs, and that’s what he does,” says Thomas A. Carey, a professor of management at Western Michigan.

Mr. Nicholson was humbled by Mr. Bolger, who is 32 and dyslexic, with an Ivy League pedigree. “I never had the ability or talent to do what he can do,” Mr. Nicholson says. “I just barely get by.”

Mr. Bolger, also a native of Michigan, congratulates the older student and disavows any academic arms race. He suggests that they collaborate. “If there was any way we could jump-start the Michigan economy,” he says, “that would be great.”

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http://chronicle.com Section: Short Subjects Volume 54, Issue 48, Page A5