Academic Affairs: A Love Story

It is difficult to say goodbye to the multi-layered community of Smithfi eld, both complex and simple, where we discern the innermost identities of apparently conventional academics, explore the intricacies of both gay and straight marriages and love affairs, admire the courage of a single woman bearing a child, develop sympathy for the loneliness of an old woman, begin to understand the heart of a fl amboyant millionaire, and discover the complicated world of Afghanistan. 

Clive Leeman 

PhD African Literature, 19th Century English Poetry, Modern American Fiction 


Set at Smithfield University in the central valley of California in the early 21st century, Academic Affairs portrays a range of characters - professors, students, a donor, the college president and provost. Bill Massy, a sociology professor, fi nds out from the woman he is sleeping with, the provost, that she is pregnant. A gay graduate student gets himself into trouble and disappoints his partner. Smithfi eld's president, Roger Turner, is involved in a capital campaign and one of his donors, an ice cream magnate, agrees to give 250 million to the university if the senior administrators will perform a certain act. A retired Black professor tends to a campus garden that seems to be haunted. 

Academic Affairs is an expansive, warm-hearted novel that explores the strengths and weaknesses of individuals who populate universities. There are neither heroes nor villains; instead Academic Affairs explores the arc of family, friendship and love and the depth of one's commitment to one another. At the end of the day most of us try to lead good lives, but occasionally we fail. Perhaps what matters most is that we try. 


William G. Tierney is University Professor and Director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the University of Southern California. He has been President of the American Educational Research Association, President of the USC Academic Senate and President of the Association for the Study of Higher Education. He is currently involved in creating games for low-income youth that will boost their college aspirations and college readiness. He is also involved in a long-term project about academic life. Tierney was an academic dean at a Native American community college in North Dakota, a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco, a Fulbright Scholar in Central America and Australia, and Scholar-in-Residence in Malaysia. He earned a master's degree from Harvard University and holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University. He is the author of 12 books about academic life; this is his first novel.