Williams College President Emeritus Francis Oakley, author of the new book "From the Cast-Iron Shore," will present a free book talk and signing on Sunday afternoon from 2-4 PM at the Clark Art Institute auditorium.
"From the Cast-Iron Shore," part personal memoir and part participant-observer's educational history, details the progression of Williams from a fraternity-dominated institution in the 1950s to the leading liberal arts college it is today.
Oakley relays his experiences growing up in England, Ireland, and Canada, his time as a soldier in the British Army, and his years as a student at Yale University. He combines this account with reflections on social class, the relationship between teaching and research, the shape of American higher education, and the challenge of educational leadership in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.
