Is My Armor Straight: A Year in the Life of a University President - Hardcover

A marvelous account of what occupies a university president's time. Berendzen, president of American University, is witty, erudite, and, on most issues, both open and honest. For example, he finds some truth in the observation that ``passions run high in academic life only because the issues are so shallow.'' Berendzen is also politically astute, as one might expect from a university president whose institution is a few miles from the White House. His account might have been more balanced had he been more forthcoming about the faculty. Nevertheless, the book is instructive of the general condition of American higher education in the 1980s. Richard H. Quay, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, Ohio
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

As president of American University in Washington, D.C., Berendzen is frequently asked, in particular by his critics, "What do you do?" The diary he kept during the 198384 academic year provides answers: he recruits, both students and benefactors; he promotes public awareness of the university; he contributes his resources to the educational community at home and abroad; he is also a husband and father. The modern university president, he shows us, plays many roles at frenetic pacewitness his long pursuit of a moneyed Arab to sponsor a campus center. Berendzen, whose other specialty is astronomy, here covers a large portion of the planet in his forays on his school's behalf. January 20
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.