One Hundred Semesters: My Adventures as Student, Professor, and University President, and What I Learned Along the Way

Chace, former president of Wesleyan and Emory Universities, expounds on his half century in the academic trenches, drawing from his experiences as a student, professor and administrator at six different institutions. Through his memoir, Chace has set his sights on the larger issues of higher education, and at times is successfully illuminating. His discussions of the professor's cult of personality and the increasing economic stratification of modern higher education are particularly worthwhile, and Chace has the rare ability to take a strong stance without preaching. Perhaps inevitably, Chace's narrative returns occasionally to the introspection and self-indulgence that characterize the memoir form, but is at its best when Chace has a bone to pick, as when confronting D-1 athletics or contrasting the struggles of a professor with the role of a corporate CEO. He also tackles the ineffable quality of true education: how hard it is to explain and cultivate, and how citizens must continue to support colleges and universities to allow them to function without government or corporate oversight that could potentially change them for the worse. Rigorous but readable, this should hold interest for education professionals of all kinds.