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

The William G. Bowen Series

by William M. Chace

In One Hundred Semesters , William Chace mixes incisive analysis with memoir to create an illuminating picture of the evolution of American higher education over the past half century. Chace follows his own journey from undergraduate education at Haverford College to teaching at Stillman, a traditionally African-American college in Alabama, in the 1960s, to his days as a professor at Stanford and his appointment as president of two very different institutions--Wesleyan University and Emory University.


Chace takes us with him through his decades in education--his expulsion from college, his boredom and confusion as a graduate student during the Free Speech movement at Berkeley, and his involvement in three contentious cases at on tenure, curriculum, and academic freedom. When readers follow Chace on his trip to jail after he joins Stillman students in a civil rights protest, it is clear that the ideas he presents are born of experience, not preached from an ivory tower.


The book brings the reader into both the classroom and the administrative office, portraying the unique importance of the former and the peculiar rituals, rewards, and difficulties of the latter.


Although Chace sees much to lament about American higher education--spiraling costs, increased consumerism, overly aggressive institutional self-promotion and marketing, the corruption of intercollegiate sports, and the melancholy state of the humanities--he finds more to praise. He points in particular to its strength and vitality, suggesting that this can be sustained if higher education remains true to its providing a humane and necessary education, inside the classroom and out, for America's future generations.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

368 pages, Hardcover

First published July 31, 2006

Reviews

[Alex Golub · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chace cites enough presidential autobiographies that it's clear that he was eager to put his oar in. This readable, at time elegant, memoir starts out intimately, but grows increasingly formal as Chace recounts legally sensitive aspects of his presidency of Wesleyan and Emory. Chace deftly mixes his life story with a snapshot and commentary on the state of higher education today, but there's not a lot new in his recommendations: big sports is bad, teaching and research are good, and administrators can never fully satisfy anyone. At times, Chace seems to go off-course. For instance, he argues that tenure is an obsolete institution that has outlived its usefulness, and then in the next paragraph argues that the problem with faculty is that they can only be persuaded (not threatened) by administrators. Which is, of course, the main reason tenure exists!

The story of his education at Berkeley was, for me, the most interesting part of the book: Chace is unsparing in his assessment of the rigors and heartlessness of post-war graduate school (which was the 'golden age', right?) and convincingly describes the ambivalence that political moderates felt about the Berkeley counterculture.

Those of us in higher education will already know much of what's in the book -- although the fire-bombed office Chace suffered at Wesleyan sets the bar high for administrators who want to gripe about their jobs. As a result, the reader who would benefit most from this book are those least likely to read it: Graduate students and parents of undergraduates. In the end, the most valuable thing One Hundred Semesters offers readers is a glimpse of what kind of person ends up becoming a successful professional administrator.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

I went to Emory during Dr. Chace's university presidency. I didn't particularly care for him as an administrator and his memoir only confirmed my feelings. I don't think he's a bad person or even a bad administrator, but we certainly see the world in very different ways. It is refreshing, however, to read about school leaders who are truly focused on building strong academics.

I read this mostly to take a look at what happened behind the scenes when I was in college. Chace's memoir mostly satisfied my interests and helped me reflect on my educational experiences at Emory and other institutions.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an undergraduate student he noted that some professors are weirdos; allegedly one subsisted exclusively on baloney sandwiches and Snickers candy bars. Then Chace became a grad student, professor (not a weirdo as this autobiography certainly attests) and later a university president, first at Wesleyan and later at Emory. He writes about flinty, no-nonsense presidential role models, about how few things (even in the academy) are exempt from the wiles of the marketplace, about the frailty of academic sensibilities, about sometime disheveled and incoherent academic departments and how a university president's job exists precariously as a broker. When he took on the high-salaried job as president of Emory in Atlanta he was initially apprehensive about the intellectual backwardness of the South but learned to cope. He exited his academic life in glory, offering gems for thought and a model for college and university leadership. (The baloney sandwich prof? Guy Davenport of the University of Kentucky. Google him. I did.)

[Claire Binkley · Rating 5 out of 5]

What I liked most about this book is that although the author mentions coming from Haverford and Wesleyan, he does not make you feel bad that you did not if you happened not to. This is more information about the first school. I myself have visited Bryn Mawr from the Tri-Clinium Institution. It says that Dave Barry went to Haverford, and someone from K-Pop I don't know, too.

So, I thought really well of this book, and was astounded that someone could keep track of being in the system for 100 semesters! Could you do it?

[Cris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting look at higher education from someone who has spent his whole life in it as an undergrad, prof, graduate student, dean, and president at a range of institutions. It's a thoughtful memoir on the changes that have crossed higher education with leveled/fair reasoning [although I'm fairly sure other leftists will also find his analysis of changes to diversify campus curriculum and affirmative action well-meaning but very myopic]. My favorite parts of the book are about the changes of social movements on campuses, the tensions between faculty- administrators-trustees, the philosophical differences between liberal arts colleges and research universities, but there's a lot here!

[AJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting look at Chance's life. The university has changed much since he passed through its halls.