If You Live by the Sword. Politics in the Making and Unmaking of a University President

🔖 Lawrence K. Pettit has had a dual career
in politics and academia. After teaching political science
at both Penn State University and Montana State University,
he spent over twenty-five years as a university chancellor
or president in Montana, Texas, Illinois, and Pennsylvania.
His career also has included stints as legislative assistant
to two U.S. Senators; Washington representative for higher
education; campaign manager, head of transition, and staff
to a Governor; and running for Congress. He writes
knowledgeably about the sometimes contentious interplay
between politics and the public university, and about the
psychological, political, and career consequences for
leaders who straddle that divide between often warring
camps. In If You Live by the Sword, the
author speaks honestly about the human struggles of the
university presidency, and how that seldom discussed aspect
of the role is intensified by the intrusion of partisan
politics. In order to distinguish this from the usual such
memoir, Pettit takes the reader behind the scenes. He
shares highlights of his own political and intellectual
development and discusses how his formative years and his
time as a university leader were affected by the evolving
political history of the country from 1937 to 2003.