Chace, William M. 1938–

(William Murdough Chace)

PERSONAL:

Born September 3, 1938, in Newport News, VA; son of William Emerson (a teacher and publicist) and Grace (Murdough) Chace; married Joan Elizabeth Johnstone (a teacher), 1964; children: William J., Katherine E. Education: Haverford College, B.A., 1961; University of California, Berkeley, M.A., 1963, Ph.D., 1968.

ADDRESSES:

E-mail—billchace@yahoo.com.

CAREER:

Stillman College, Tuscaloosa, AL, instructor in English, 1963-64; University of California, Berkeley, CA, teaching assistant, 1964-66, acting instructor, 1967-68; Stanford University, Stanford, CA, assistant professor of English, 1968-74, associate professor, 1974-80, professor, 1980-85, associate dean of School of Humanities and Sciences, 1981-85, vice provost for academic planning and development, 1985-88; Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, president, 1988-94; Emory University, Atlanta, GA, president, 1994-2003, professor of English, 1994—.

MEMBER:

Modern Language Association of America.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Woodrow Wilson National fellowship, 1961-62; Richard W. Lyman Award, Stanford Alumni Association, 1986, for extraordinary academic leadership in and out of the classroom; Dean's Award for Excellence in Teaching, Stanford University; honorary degrees from Amherst College, Williams College, and Union College.

WRITINGS:

(With Peter Collier) Justice Denied: The Black Man in White America, Harcourt, 1970.

(Editor with wife, Joan E. Chace) Making It New (anthology of poems), Canfield Press, 1973.

The Political Identities of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1973.

(Editor) James Joyce: A Collection of Critical Essays, Prentice-Hall, 1973.

Lionel Trilling, Criticism and Politics, Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 1980.

(With Collier) An Introduction to Literature, Harcourt Brace (San Diego, CA), 1985.

One Hundred Semesters: My Adventures as Student, Professor, and University President, and What I Learned along the Way, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 2006.

Contributor to magazines, including Novel, Mosaic, and American Quarterly.

SIDELIGHTS:

William M. Chace's career in academia has spanned more than forty years and has afforded him an inside view of all aspects of university life—as a college student at Haverford College and the University of California at Berkeley, as a professor of English at Stanford, and as a university president at Wesleyan University and Emory University. He chronicles the successes and challenges of his diverse career in One Hundred Semesters: My Adventures as Student, Professor, and University President, and What I Learned along the Way. Booklist reviewer Bryce Christensen explained that the book details "how the struggle for racial and gender equality has forced once-exclusive schools to redefine themselves as ‘multiversities’ serving diverse communities." Evelyn Beck wrote in a review for Library Journal that "Chace is a gifted storyteller, appealingly honest in analyzing what he did well and where he went wrong." "Chace's quiet, modest voice," remarked a Kirkus Reviews critic, "is intelligent and appealing."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, August 1, 2006, Bryce Christensen, review of One Hundred Semesters: My Adventures as Student, Professor, and University President, and What I Learned along the Way, p. 15.

Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2006, review of One Hundred Semesters, p. 611.

Library Journal, July 1, 2006, Evelyn Beck, review of One Hundred Semesters, p. 88.

ONLINE

Goizueta Business Magazine Online, http://www.goizuetagmag.emory.edu/ (winter, 2003), "Emory University President Chace Announces Retirement."