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Rating: 
Summary: Historian's take
Review: The author actually did serve as interim president of Olivet College and it is okay to talk about it now since the institution has been reformed. The story is properly about "Middlesex" College. There had been a racial incident and the former president had been urged to resign. Female college presidents were still rare ten years ago. Perhaps someone had thought that a female would be less threatening. The school had been founded before the the Civil War. It admitted as students women and African Americans. It was sponsored by the Congregational Church. Mrs. Kreuter writes that all campuses have too-small parking lots. She says she is a true believer in small colleges. An outside consultant, hired the previous year, had noted a concern with the racial climate on campus. She had received her degrees in history at the University of Wisconsin in the 1950's. Merl Curti was there and he was reputed to take women students seriously. She went into college administration after she was divorced. She sensed an air of tension on the campus. The students and their families struggled to pay the college bills. The college had serious problems in academic and student life areas. Turnover of the faculty was extraordinarily high. The former president had been autocratic. There was no tenure system. Business administration classes were overflowing. Unusual on a small campus, the student body was two-thirds male, one-third female. There was an animal house quality to student life. Some of the academic programs were subpar. The board, at the urging of Mrs. Kreuter, directed that remedial action be commenced to bring the college closer to its peer colleges. Thefts rile a community. Thefts occurred. It is necessary to underline the fact that this is a fictitious memoir of a fictitious place. Mrs. Kreuter does a good job of showing how misunderstandings escalate into racial incidents. In the spring of her one year term, things heated up. There was controversy concerning graduation speakers. More than anything, the book is a study of diplomacy. It is wonderful how the author characterizes the minuet of commencement exercises and her pivotal role in it as the giver of diplomas. Among other strengths of the book, it is written by an historian.
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