100 Semesters: My Adventures as Student, Professor, and University President, And What I Learned Along the Way by William M. Chace, is exactly what it sounds like. It tells of one man's journey through his life of academia from undergraduate to the head of a university.
Everyone's story is different, and Chace's is no exception. While his college experience is not unlike most, the route had more than a few twists and turns. For a boy who led a sheltered life, detours off his future's path would give Chace an education beyond anything he could imagine.
Failing to enter West Point, Chace looked for another way to obtain education beyond high school. After soul-searching, a friend mentioned a place somebody had told her about. A small, men-only place of higher education, Haverford College was chosen for its Pennsylvania location. Chace lived in Maryland during his high-school years, and it was not too far from home. The fact that it was run by Quakers was less of a consideration, but Haverford would prove to be too much for Chace to handle.
The college had rules to be followed, including taking morals seriously. Every young man who entered Haverford was well aware of the academic honor code. It was also impressed upon him that he had a responsibility to turn himself in if in violation, or if he knew of another who was. This turned out to be a problem.
After graduation, Chace entered a different world when he chose to attend graduate school at Berkeley, perhaps the most liberal school on the West Coast. Chace eventually left to be a staff member at Stillman College in Alabama. It was the 1960s, one of the most turbulent times in this country's racial history. During his tenure at Stillman, he would find out he had a lot to learn.
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