University of Days — Dan Schmidt

In this collection of loosely connected vignettes about a year at college, memorable characters face life with humor, despair, grace, and hope. For readers of Jan Karon, Alexander McCall Smith, and Blaise Pascal. *** Much has changed in the century since this Christian liberal arts college rose from the fertile imagination of a southern tobacco farmer. What's less clear is how staff, students, faculty, and administrators with mixed motives and competing agendas will face what lies ahead. The writing prof who moonlights with pulp fiction; a one-handed potter; the Anglican chaplain and his puzzling traditions; a prankster desperate for notoriety; the provost struggling to herd cats; a first-year teacher with a dangerous reading list; a security officer who likes to climb -- all these and more have questions to ask, choices to regret, fires to put out, joys to express, and papers to grade. This year, the real world is getting awfully close to the ivory towers at University of Days.