The Freshman Who Hated Socrates, A College President Reflects on Life in the Liberal Arts

In fourteen years as a college president-first at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and then for nine years at Amherst-Tom Gerety taught and worked with some of the nation's finest under-graduate students. During this time he also had an opportunity to regularly address these students, and thousands of others, through public speeches on topics of national, institutional and personal interest. This book collects nearly three dozen of these speeches-on topics ranging from teaching to residential life, from Shakespeare to the liberal arts, from war to love, and loss. Together, these essays offer insight into one of our nation's leading college presidents, and into the lives of American college students.