Reading Yeats and Striving to Be a College President

What they undertook to do,
they brought to pass.
All things hang like a drop of dew
upon a blade of grass.
W. B. Yeats

The work of a college president, or of any administrator in a position of responsibility, is fraught with challenges and pressuresand also a fair share of dull, burdensome moments. To avoid becoming overwhelmed, a president has to delicately handle both of these extremes while maintaining vision and continuing to serve the students and staff. In Reading Yeats and Striving to Be a College President, author and former college president Dr. John O. Hunter delves into the nature of his almost fifty-year career in higher education, and he reveals the powerful inspiration and guidance he received along the way.

The mostly chronological narrative of Reading Yeats is interspersed with letters to and from Dr. Hunter and articles he wrote on a huge variety of topics ranging from art, relationships, and the workings of business to current events and issues of cultural conscience. The lessons of his profession and his life are informed by the muses that gradually revealed themselves to himthe Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, and the words of master poets.

By finding muses and absorbing the lessons they embody, we bring to the forefront the issues of primary importance in our lives, and we are finally allowed the presence of mind to face them.