OCR: The Mysterious Master's

Chip Coffey would love for you to think that he has some kind of special training in addition to his psychic powers that qualifies him to counsel disturbed children on A&E’s Psychic Kids. And just to make this clear, when I refer to Chip’s “psychic powers”, I’m talking about his uncanny knack for saying he can see and feel invisible beings no one else can see or feel. In his official bio, after mentioning his relation to the unkown-to-anyone-else “famed” Native American medicine woman Minnie Sue Morrow Foster, he says he has a master’s degree in counseling. You’d think this kind of education would enhance his ability to soothe the troubled minds of the poor children he parades on his show, but since when do trained counselors tell kids that the demons in their heads are not only real, but are also attacking them?

I couldn’t find any reference to where Chip may have earned his master’s in his information online. Just lots of overlit pictures of him touching tomb stones and staring into space. So, I contacted his college lecture booking agent to ask about these mysterious credentials. I’d say I was shocked and dismayed to discover that an accredited university would pay heard-earned tuition money to have Chip Coffey point and wave and pretend to see invisible spirits, but my alma mater once booked a Creed concert. One may be worse than the other. Anyway, Chip’s agency was more than happy to share any information I needed—except for anything about his master’s in counseling. To quote: “[Chip] doesn't give the name of his graduate school because he has had some invasion of privacy issues with people contacting old classmates and professors. I thought it seemed a little weird too, but as he is not an academic, but a paranormal investigator, I didn't think it mattered that much.”

The hell? I’m not interested in hounding your old school buddies, Chip. I just want to know if demonology was part of the core curriculum at your school.

Maybe, I thought, if I could track down his undergraduate degree, I might be able to find out where he earned his vaporous master’s. I’m sure I Googled Chip’s name almost as much as he does before I found a mention of him graduating from Elmira College, a very beautiful looking campus in New York state. Oddly enough, Elmira College doesn’t seem to offer a master’s in counseling. I hate to say it, but it’s starting to look like Chip may have fudged his credentials a little bit. But who am I to judge? Every day, I pray my employers don’t check on the whole Nicaraguan guerilla training area of my résumé.

I work for the CIA, by the way. Don’t tell anyone.

Just for shits and giggles (mostly giggles), I paid a degree verification service $6.50 of my hard-earned money to check up on just Chip’s undergraduate degree. Maybe he double majored in psychology and demonology? Turns out I might as well have saved the cash for the Subway discount menu, however, since no one could turn up any record of Chip having graduated from Elmira College at all. Now, there could be a reasonable explanation for this. Maybe “Chip” is a nickname (god, I hope so). Maybe there’s some kind of clerical error.

Chip, if you’re reading this, could you drop me a line and let me know just what kind of counseling training you have? I’d really like to know which of your esteemed predecessors originated the therapeutic method of telling kids the reason they’re scared of the dark is because ghosts are trying to catch them.