The unprecedented upheavals of the 1960s presented momentous challenges to higher education, forcing university leaders to wrestle with political forces that threatened to compromise and even undermine the university’s historical commitments to free inquiry and the unbiased pursuit of truth. New challenges since the `60s have thrown additional challenges in the university’s path, including financial issues, the decline of faculty commitment to shared governance and institutional responsibility, and the politics of political correctness. Considering these dilemmas from the perspectives of university presidents, Stephen Nelson has written a compelling and important account of the ways that leaders of major universities have struggled to navigate these turbulent waters. Nelson presents illustrative background information about the forces that have riveted higher education, provides instructive portrayals of university leaders, and offers profiles of success and failure. This highly instructive book should be read by anyone concerned about the status and prospects of higher education.

Donald Alexander Downs, University of Wisconsin - Madison

It turns out, remarkably, that those U.S. college presidents of the chaotic and demanding decades of the 1960s and 1970s who were most successful were those who had the courage to take a stand in the middle path, to hold the center. This is among the many startling yet ultimately convincing conclusions of Stephen Nelson’s Decades of Chaos and Revolution. Nelson cites Harvard’s Charles William Eliot who, seeking some comparison for the challenges of a college president among other professional leaders, concluded that there is ‘no equal in the world.’ So, too, there is no study of the American college presidency the equal of Decades of Chaos and Revolution, the most discerning and wisest of recent scholars on the subject.

Robert Oden Jr., past president, Carleton College

This book, lively and comprehensive, serves as a reminder of the duress under which college and university presidents in the ‘sixties and ‘seventies learned to live. Some notably failed; some notably succeeded. None could have anticipated what they soon had to face. Amid disruptions and genuine threats to academic freedom, the identity of the presidential mission was transformed. No longer could it be isolated from the larger world beyond the campus gates. Stephen J. Nelson helps us to understand this momentous change. His portraits of leading presidents of the time will help us understand the recent past. His book will show us how that past now shapes the campus of today.

William Chace, professor emeritus of English, Stanford University

Stephen J. Nelson has delivered yet another excellent analysis of the American college presidency, this time by comparing the turbulent 1960s through mid-70s to the opening decade of the twenty-first century. Although Nelson concludes that the earlier time period was more challenging for college presidents, he extracts lessons learned from a series of 60s-era case studies that provide insight about contemporary presidents and may inform them as they face similar, if less daunting, challenges. Although presidential success can never be assured, Nelson asserts that its likelihood increases when presidents lead from the middle, honor institutional history, and focus intently on mission. ‘More than anything,’ Nelson states, ‘we need college presidents who can lead from responsibility and conviction.’ Those who have an interest in the evolution of the academy and the college presidency over the last 50 years will find Nelson’s selection and analysis of case studies to be both fascinating and enlightening.

Janet Riggs, president, Gettysburg College