College and University Books

I was asked to put together a "continuing education" course for community college instructors, and this book came in very handy. I passed it over when we were planning the curriculum for a degree program because it is too general and covers too much ground. However, for a fast-paced introduction to teaching post-secondary classes, this is the book you want.

I was tempted to gather free materials and avoid a text for the continuing ed course, but participants find it very handy to have a text to refer to later. And, it is much easier to hand off the course to another instructor if a text is available.

This text isn't for every purpose, but I gave it five stars for my purpose of getting college instructors up to speed as quickly as possible before they enter the classroom. The table of contents is a ready-made list of the topics I need to cover.

Kaye Shelton has "been there and done that" and she is not hesitant to tell about it. This book has many helpful suggestions, amplified by appropriate examples. It is well organized--just what an online director needs when faced with establishing a new program.

We're all used to using the net to get information, with the end result often being too much material with too little information. This book gets right down to the "nuts and bolts". It saved me time (which I don't have enough of) and money and took away a lot of the pain. A must read!

Experienced shared prepares the attentive heart. The Advancement President and the Academy is truly a shared experience, an opportunity to walk in the shoes of former and present-day college presidents. This book is as much an instructional guide as it is a spirited song about the resounding values, the significance, and the essence of leading today's academic institution. The Advancement President is more than just a collection of essays; it is a rich knowledge base reflecting those things that are tried and true about the office of the campus chief executive.

I started this book with the fancy idea that I wanted to become a college president. I finished this book with a sense that I had just completed an internship with America's friendliest and wisest college presidents. From the start I felt personally mentored while touring the hallways of higher education and the communities that they both affect and are affected by. This collection of essays reads like a personal dialogue between mentor and mentee, and even though each author addresses a different subject area, each essay is anchored in the uncovering of the work of the advancement president and how this experience better equips one to lead in other capacities.

The "advancement president" refers to the officer in higher education institutions who, in varying degrees, is responsible for cultivating constituency relationships, promoting a positive image, and fundraising to support institutional priorities and growth. (In most cases this is not the office of the college president, but a staff position in the service of the president.) While no one area of the advancement office is left unexplored in this book, one of the major themes throughout many of the essays is that of the primacy of interrelationships between the executive office and various constituencies.

It was the uncovering of these relationships - their function, importance, and their challenges - that I found most interesting and meaningful during the reading. The Advancement President and the Academy has much to say about interacting with publics such as governments, philanthropists, parents, students, faculty, media, civic leaders, corporations, alumni, staff, and one's own family. These constituencies all play a pivotal role in the day-to-day activities of the advancement president. One essayist pointed out that decisions regarding the many constituencies "must not be left to chance" or be treated "superficially." The vital job of the president, then, is to give thoughtful and adequate attention to these relations so that the parties become willing partners working to strengthen the school's value to the community and its ability to meet new challenges. Another essayist added to this point that "every constituency looks to the [president] for leadership." What a fresh revelation this was! It helped to understand the principle that leading from without is just as important as leading from within.

A portrait of this quality of leadership is detailed in the book. My traditional view of college presidents is of starchy talking heads, of men and women babbling about educational philosophies with their faces almost devoid of any human emotion. On the contrary, this reading reveals the human side of the chief executive. Good college presidents and advancement officers are people of warmth who work toward laudable goals that serve diverse needs. College presidents are not just salesmen of institutional vision, they are men and women who care enough to commit their lives to help others expand and fulfil their personal visions. They are a passionate people, generously devoted to the institution's values and the people that create them. These leaders possess highly developed personal strengths, not unlike those required in ministerial or social leadership. Michael Adams, President of the University of Georgia, discussed some traits that include "a love of people... a sense of personal integrity, supreme competence, an innate desire to give something back to society... a sense of humility... and the mind of a servant." Another college president showed us a glimpse of the integrity required of the executive officer when he wrote, " My signature on every letter or note was genuine..."

Considering this description of the executive officer along with the many practical insights shared about institutional advancement, some heavy implications are left for me to reflect on. The implications of this reading for my life and career primarily have to do with mapping my route to the executive office. After reflection I cannot help but to think that the wisest approach to the executive office is through the doors of the advancement office. The essays provide fantastic examples of men and women who have taken this same route. The president of John Hopkins University wrote, "No president can avoid full engagement in the work of institutional advancement... [or] long serve in office unless he or she raises support for the institution," and Elizabeth Lee wrote, "I think that many heads of schools would say that at least 50 percent of their time is spent on advancement... the best training I got for headship was working in a development office because it prepared me for so many of my day's activities." I take these statements as personal advice and wisdom for pursuing my goal of becoming a college president.

From my own perspective, the fruits of The Advancement President and the Academy and of every contributor's labors culminates in the personal challenge I feel to ready myself for my future in the executive seat. My newfound respect for the office and for those it serves helps me to recognize the many personal changes I must make during my season of preparation. As I work toward personal transformation to ready my being for this type of leadership, I will cling to The Advancement President and reflect on it regularly. I will continue to grapple with its truths, its wisdom, and the spirit of the profession portrayed in the stories shared by each of the contributors, for in my opinion, these are some of the best men and women our country can boast to have ever known. I sincerely thank them for their tutelage.

I reserve no commendation for this book. Mary Kay Murphy has collected the consummate companion for those such as myself who desire to engage with the principles of leadership in higher education and the accumulated knowledge of many experienced leaders. The contributing authors render to readers many pearls of great price as if they were personally mentoring their readers and for this great contribution we owe our gratitude. There are truly not enough stars to reward them in kind.

With _The Aftermath of Revolution: Sligo 1921-23_, Michael Farry has provided us with a detailed social history of the Irish Civil War in Sligo, a county in north-western Connacht on Ireland's Atlantic coast. What makes this little-known county such an interesting subject is the contrast between its records in the War of Independence and the Civil War: like Mayo and Wexford, Sligo showed little fight during the struggle against the British from 1919-21, but fought bitterly against the Free State from 1922 to 1923; in fact, the resistance of the Anti-Treaty IRA was never overcome by the Free State Army. Farry explains the first part of this contradiction in his Introduction, which briefly describes the War of Independence in Sligo. According to Farry, the growth of the IRA in Sligo was retarded by the county's conservatism and parliamentarism: the people of Sligo were unusually attached to the old Irish Parliamentary Party and were reluctant to embrace Republicanism and revolution. As a result, the Sligo Brigade was slower than others to organize, gather arms and ammunition, and attack the RIC and the Army.

Despite its poor record in the War of Independence, the Sligo IRA emerged as the dominant organization in the County after the Truce of 11 July 1921. Ch. 1 of _The Aftermath of Revolution_ describes the five and a half months between the truce and the peace treaty of late December. "During this period," Farry concludes, "the IRA took charge in County Sligo, brooking no opposition, especially from mere politicians, and basked in the glory of a war won." (p. 35) This long afterglow was ended by the bitter dispute over the Treaty, which gave up the six counties of Northern Ireland and created an Irish Free State rather than the Republic that many IRA men had fought for. Chs. 2 and 3 describe how Sligo, along with the rest of Southern Ireland, drifted toward Civil War in the first half of 1922, as many Republicans refused to accept either the Treaty or the central authority that it created. Finally, after the Free State forces attacked Republican positions in the center of Dublin in July 1922, the Civil War began. In Ch. 4, Farry argues that the Republican "Irregulars" were as confused and ineffective in County Sligo as they were elsewhere. Instead of taking the offensive against the Free State army, they adopted a strategy of passive defense, and when the Free State forces attacked the IRA abandoned its positions and returned to a more familiar style of guerrilla warfare. What had worked against the British in an island united, however, did not work against their fellow countrymen in an island divided. Though the Free State never succeeded in defeating the Sligo Irregulars, it was clear long before the IRA's unilateral cease-fire of 24 May 1922 that the Republican cause in Sligo, as elsewhere, was lost.

Farry follows this narrative with two chapters on the 'structure' of the Civil War. Interestingly, in Ch. 5 he shows that while the IRA dominated inaccessible areas like the Ox Mountains, most of the fighting took place "in the areas of better land where towns with government posts were situated." (p. 114) The reason for this was simple but interesting: the Free State army had "fixed positions that were susceptible to attack" (p. 104), while the Republican Irregulars did not; when the Free State army swept through their remote and mountainous base areas, the IRA simply avoided fighting. Farry also concludes, surprisingly, that recruits for both sides came from every part of the county, but the biggest surprise in his book comes in Ch. 6, "Sligo County Participants." Most historians have agreed that the split over the Treaty reflected social class divisions as well as political and constitutional differences: the Treaty, they argue, was supported by the more prosperous and opposed by the less prosperous. Farry, however, examines the occupations, land valuations, and house valuations of the participants and concludes that "the Civil War division in County Sligo was not based on social standing or relative wealth." (p. 129)

Farry follows these revelations with three chapters on the impact of the Civil War in Sligo. In Ch. 7, he describes how "the disruption in communications together with the general lawlessness led to a major decline in the social and sporting life in the county," (p. 156) while the conflict made a bad economic situation even worse. Similarly, in Ch. 8 Farry shows how the decline in law and order that marked the War of Independence continued and worsened during the Truce, Treaty, and Civil War periods. "Agrarian unrest, intimidation of Protestants, robbery, petty crime and hooliganism became widespread," (p. 176), and after the outbreak of the Civil War wide areas of the county were reduced to anarchy. As the preceding quote suggests, Sligo's Protestants were especially vulnerable in such a situation, and though Farry finds no evidence of "a concerted anti-Protestant campaign" (p. 201) he does show in Ch. 9 that the fear and insecurity of the Civil War accelerated the decline of the county's small Protestant community. In each of these chapters, Michael Farry shows the strengths of the "war and society" approach to military history, by looking behind the movements and clashes of military units to show us a county torn apart by violence.

Michael Farry's _The Aftermath of Revolution: Sligo 1921-23_ is a superb book that combines conventional political and military history with social history to provide a deep and enlightening analysis of a community at war with itself. Farry's book is a model both for local histories of national events and for histories of that notoriously difficult subject, guerrilla warfare. By concentrating on a small area-one county in northwest Ireland-Farry's book illuminates some very large themes: his case study of insurgency and counterinsurgency is more instructive than any number of more general works on the same subjects. His writing is clear and readable and his use of evidence is both imaginative and judicious. Besides its value as a contribution to Irish history, his book is an important addition to the social history of war and the literature of low-intensity conflict and guerrilla warfare. Though intended for an academic audience, Farry's book should appeal to anyone with an interest in the subject matter, and I recommend it highly.

While not the largest reference on Rolls-Royce & Bentley, this book is one of the most pleasurable I've read on the subject. It is very well presented, concise, informative and readable.

Beginning with the first Royce cars of 1904, the book continues chronologically through the 1996 models. I most enjoyed the sections on the Silver Ghost & those on the later models which are given equal coverage with the popular middle year cars.

The numerous illustrations are very well selected. Especially nice are chassis line drawings for most models and many good interior photos. The color photo gallery in the center is beautiful.

Another useful feature is a technical specification chart, including chassis numbers, for each series. If you would like to invest in just one book to tell the story of Rolls-Royce & Bentley, this would be an excellent choice.

Aging and Judging Trophy Whitetails is the ultimate resource for every whitetail enthusiast. The book is loaded with photos (almost 300 color photographs) taken by esteemed wildlife photographers, and is a teaching tool to age and judge trophy whitetails in the field. It also includes a self test to see how well you have learned the skills expertly taught in the text. A must have!!

Mr. Branscomb's insight into the Soviet military is impressive. A must read for all scholars of the Cold War.

Hey! My grandpappy wrote that book!

BUY IT!

Joel Cabourne-Jones

Noteworthy treatment of an arcane topic. A premier source for this topic. The author, David Strohm, obviously knows his material.