"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.
