Reviewers said:
"writes with both irreverence and affection . . .
pointed, but usually good-natured, thrusts . . .
delightfully written by one who has seen much foolish-
ness and contentiousness in the academy but who still cares sufficiently about the enterprise to set a model for an overriding sense of fairness and purpose in the work of colleges and universities"
(Jerome Rosenberg, Academe, Jan/Feb 1989)
"Although this dean's claws are sheathed, his tongue is not. . .
There is much practical wisdom in Martin's pages
. .a good-humored book . . . plenty of aphorisms to keep us cheerful"
(Eugen Weber, American Scholar,
"A slim but significant book: informative, well written, direct. . . . an indispensable addition to the growing literature of academic politics . . . .
Josef Martin has the right stuff"
(Joan Baum, Clarion, October 1988)
"strong opinions that will drive some of the more progressive readers . . . slightly batty . . . .
one of the most humorous volumes on higher education . . . . somewhere between a David Lodge or Alison Lurie novel and a more traditional scholarly analysis of higher education"
(Philip Altbach, Higher Education, 18 [1989] 361-62)
I had published this book under a pseudonym because I didn't want it taken as
a "roman à clef". The stories are not all based on actual occurrences, let alone occurrences at Virginia Tech where I had been Dean. I wanted the tales to be taken as representative of the SORTS of things that Deans encounter, not as invitations to guess which real-life people at Virginia Tech I might have had in mind when creating the characters in the book.
But Josef Martin's real identity was never a mystery at Virginia Tech itself; both Provost and President --- for whom I continue to have the warmest respect and fond memories --- had received inscribed, hot-off-the-press copies.
Nor was Josef Martin's identity ever any mystery to various friends of mine, for there are all sorts of clues to it in the book itself, for example, references to Loch Ness monsters.
And, too, my father was Martin Josef Bauer, readily to be discovered
in the biographies of me in various reference works.
A year after the book came out, I was invited to speak at the annual meeting of the Council of Colleges of Arts & Sciences, and I welcomed the opportunity to reveal the book's authentic authorship. The new second edition by Wipf & Stock
contains a transcript of that talk as well as other added material.
I had asked the person who was going to introduce Josef Martin to conduct a show of hands among those in the audience who had read the book, what they thought Martin's academic background to be --- biologist, chemist, historian, etc. --- because, as some chapters in my book discuss, I had learned how different are the cultural attributes of those who profess the various academic disciplines, and I wanted to see whether I had succeeded in emancipating myself. I was gratified that the guesses were all over the place, that I had successfully masked my former life as chemist and recent immersion in science studies.
