There may never have been a funnier or more honest account of life in
higher education.--Jonathan Larsen, former editor of High Times and
the Village Voice
Will Wootton reminds us of the joys and the value of small liberal arts
colleges [and] why we should fight--as he did mightily--for their
survival. --Dr. Paul LeBlanc, President and CEO of Southern New
Hampshire University
Will Wootton, at various junctures in his life, has been a horse
wrangler in Colorado, a sous-chef in southern Vermont, and the editor of
a Chinese-English newspaper in Boston. While Good Fortune Next Time
touches on these endeavors, its real focus is on the joys and
tribulations of administering small liberal arts colleges in New
England. This literary memoir tracks Wootton's twenty-nine- year odyssey
through the halls of academia, ending with his six years as president of
Sterling College in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, where he paces back and
forth on the porch of worry, coaxing the small but beloved college back
to life.
Will Wootton served as President of Sterling College from 2006 to
2012. Before then, he was Vice President for Institutional Advancement
at Montserrat College of Art, and for nineteen years he was at Marlboro
College. Wootton has published articles in the Chronicle of Higher
Education and recently a chapter from Good Fortune Next Time in the
Santa Fe Writers Project. He and his wife Lulu live in Craftsbury
Common, Vermont.
