Solution to Evan Birnholz’s March 21 Post Magazine crossword, “Distance Learning”

The twin revealers are at 83A: [Institutions found in this puzzle’s circled squares] which is SCHOOLS and 53A: [One who may be far from campus while distance-learning, spelled out in the first letters of this puzzle’s theme answers]. Take the first letters of those seven phrases and you get STUDENT, who’s as distant from the schools while still remaining in the same phrase.

Normally when I write puzzles that feature a group of target letters (like the letters of STUDENT in this one), I’ll often do whatever I can to avoid other instances of the same letter appearing in its theme answer. That seemed like it would be a good call since the name of the game is spreading the letters of STUDENT as far apart from college names as possible. The funny thing is, I didn’t even plan on that beforehand in this puzzle. It just worked out that way.

The starting T of TAKING UP SPACE is the only T in that answer. The starting E of ERICA HUBBARD is the only E in her name. Even in SPIRITED DEBATES, the starting S is the farthest letter from the ending S in BATES. Same situation with DISAGREED. I don’t think it would have been a fatal flaw to have an extra E in the middle of ERICA HUBBARD or an extra T in the middle of TAKING UP SPACE, but still, it pays to be lucky sometimes.