There is someone on campus whom everyone has seen in passing, but with whom very few people have gotten the chance to speak. Dr. James Wigglesworth, professor of ornithology at Elizabethtown College, is a reclusive but well-meaning professor who lives and works on top of the High Library.
Ornithology is the study of birds. In Wigglesworth’s opinion, Etown’s campus is a great place to do some recreational birdwatching, due to the campus’ abundance of native flora and fauna. He especially likes to watch the vultures who have been known for roosting on the roof of the library in past years. To his dismay, they have mostly stopped approaching the building since he moved in.
“I have always been enraptured by the vultures that bless the campus with their presence. Exquisite.”
Wigglesworth offers the class Introduction to Ornithology on a weekly basis and is planning to add Advanced Studies in Ornithology to the roster if there ever gets to be a significant enrollment for the introductory course. As a matter of fact, this is the very first semester in which Introduction to Ornithology has been able to run.
In previous semesters, not a single student signed up for the course. This year, two students have confirmed their enrollment, much to Wigglesworth’s delight, but he is still in dismay at the general lack of interest in ornithology within the student body.
“It is such a shame that just two pupils have signed up for my class,” Wigglesworth said. “Students are always fussing over the lack of space in core classes. This course is the perfect way to ‘knock out’ the Natural and Physical Science core, so to speak. Wondrous.”
He is quite proud of his teaching style, but he is disappointed when neither of his students shows up for the corequisite three-hour birdwatching lab on Fridays at 8:00 a.m.
“The youth have no appreciation for the simple pleasure of watching an avian in flight. Disastrous.”
The lecture, which lasts for an hour and twenty minutes twice a week, takes a biological and anatomical approach to the study of all things avian. He says that he wants students to learn about the more scientific aspect of birds simultaneously with learning how to gain an appreciation for the animals through birdwatching.
After receiving his Bachelor of Science in Biology from Elizabethtown College, Wigglesworth earned his Ph.D. from Cornell University, where he first discovered his love for ornithology.
“I originally wanted to pursue a career as a veterinarian, but then, on one early September morning, I witnessed the gorgeous display of the morning sun hitting the outstretched wings of an Indigo Bunting. Spectacular.”
One thing that Wigglesworth wishes for students to know about him is that he spent the majority of his undergraduate years on the dance floor.
“Regretfully, I was quite the ‘party animal,’ as they say,” Wigglesworth said. “They even called me ‘The Wiggler.’ Atrocious.”
“No one called him ‘The Wiggler,'” Dr. Squigglesby, one of Wigglesworth’s peers from his time as an Etown student, said. “He kept trying to make it happen, but at a certain point, it got weird.”
