Is My Armor Straight?; A Year in the Life of a University President

Bethesda, MD: Adler & Adler, c1986. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. Good/Good. 24 cm, xiii, [3]. 351, [1] pages. Index. Foreword by David Riesman. Inscribed by the author. Richard E. Berendzen (born in 1938) is an American scientist. Joining the physics and astronomy faculty at Boston University, he became astronomy department chairman in 1971. In 1974 Berendzen went to American University, Washington, D.C., as a professor and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. He then became the university provost, the chief academic officer. In 1980 Berendzen became AU's eleventh president. The university's endowment and financial status improved. The General Education Program and Honors Program took shape and became key features. University-wide awards to faculty, students, and staff became an annual, distinguished tradition. While these tangible achievements were reached, the academic quality, admissions standards, and reputation of the university also rose markedly. In 1990, Berendzen resigned as president of American University after a woman who received indecent calls complained to police, who traced the calls to his office. Berendzen received no fine or community service requirements for this misdemeanor charge, but was sentenced to two thirty-day suspended terms and directed to continue therapy. Three years later he published a book addressing the calls and his experience as a victim of child molestation. Eventually he would return to American University in a teaching role. Many students would rally around him in an effort to support his return to the post of President of the University, but he declined this call. A chronicle of the educator's interaction with the university community at American University in Washington, DC. The author was later involved in a sexual harassment scandal. From a Kirkus review: Berendzen began this diary at the suggestion of a Reader's Digest editor, dictated it nightly from notes made during the day, often recalling dialogue with a witty vividness. Stuffed, often amusing quasi-diary of a year in the driven life of Washington, D.C.'s American University President Berendzen. As Berendzen hops about from sunup to midnight, shouldering crises, chasing donors, enforcing policies, arbitrating the demands of students, faculty and support staff, cheerleading, hosting, and tourguiding, while keeping up his roles as a respected astronomer and fundraising media lion, with barely a glance at his equally harried presidential partner-wife Gail or his stashed away but gifted and forgiving critic, 12-year-old daughter Natasha, he finds that he needs a suit of armor for warding off daily critical blows anent his right and wrong decisions, visions, indecisions, and revisions. Fortunately, he owns just such a steel suit and has been known to wear it to a faculty meeting when having some un-pleasant news to break. Perhaps his central, most overriding problem is getting a combination sports and convocation center built. Financing this absolutely necessary $20 million addition to the campus takes superhuman powers of fund raising, and the goal is far from being in sight. Squiggling through his hectic day in the administrative compactor, Berendzen also finds himself required to be the life of the party at every social event. Much pain and suffering, but no self-pity, and all unquenchably readable.