Sex makes monkeys out of all of us. If you don’t give in to it, you wind up a cold, unfeeling bastard. If you do, you spend the rest of your life picking up the pieces. . . . At the start of senior year at William & Mary, the six-foot-tall, raven-haired beauty Victoria “Vic” Savedge finds her future mapped out in detail. She will marry Charly Harrison, the son of one of Virginia’s most prominent families. Though branded by a fiery streak of independence, Vic hasn’t really considered any other options. Until she meets a woman named Chris. A transfer from Vermont, Chris is new to Southern mores and attitudes. Though instantly captivated by Vic, she is also drawn to the entire quirky but charming Savedge family. But the young women’s friendship is not your basic college-girl variety. For neither can resist their mutual attraction–an attraction that erupts into a passion that will forever change the course of both their lives.

Suing Alma Mater provides a clear-eyed perspective on the legal issues facing higher education today.

America’s public universities educate 80% of our nation’s college students. But in the wake of rising demands on state treasuries, changing demographics, growing income inequality, and legislative indifference, many of these institutions have fallen into decline. Tuition costs have skyrocketed, class sizes have gone up, the number of courses offered has gone down, and the overall quality of education has decreased significantly. Here James C. Garland draws on more than thirty years of experience as a professor, administrator, and university president to argue that a new compact between state government and public universities is needed to make these schools more affordable and financially secure. Saving Alma Mater challenges a change-resistant culture in academia that places too low a premium on efficiency and productivity. Seeing a crisis of campus leadership, Garland takes state legislators to task for perpetuating the decay of their public university systems and calls for reforms in the way university presidents and governing boards are selected. He concludes that the era is long past when state appropriations can enable public universities to keep their fees low and affordable. Saving Alma Mater thus calls for the partial deregulation of public universities and a phase-out of their state appropriations. Garland’s plan would tie university revenues to their performance and exploit the competitive pressures of the academic marketplace to control costs, rein in tuition, and make schools more responsive to student needs. A much-needed blueprint for reform based on Garland’s real-life successes as the head of Miami University of Ohio, Saving Alma Mater will be essential for anyone concerned with the costs and quality of higher education in America today.

ABOUT ALMA MATER I This book is in many ways the story of my university life, but also the book of cosmology, inspiration, romance, love and friendship, success and failure, achievement and disappointment. This is a book for everyone who ever attended school, at an alma mater, and can read poetry in at least one of the three languages in which it is originally written.

An alumnus of Kenyon College as well as a faculty member, Kluge presents a knowledgeable examination of the dynamics, character, traditions, tensions, and pretensions of the small, private, and costly school. Famous teachers include John Crowe Ransom, and famous students include E.L. Doctorow.

Beg, borrow . . . or kill! St. Michael’s College, Cambridge, is prestigious, stately – and in frightful disrepair. To replenish its dwindling coffers, the College’s Master holds a fundraising weekend for wealthy alums. But all goes awry when the glamorous – and despised – Lexy Laurant is found strangled on the grounds. There’s a lengthy list of likely suspects: Lexy’s debt-ridden Latino lover, her titled ex-husband who left her for another woman, and a garrulous oil-rich Texan with something to hide, among others. As Detective Chief Inspector St. Just weighs clashing egos, he discovers unsavoury secrets . . . and a shocking twist.