subterfuge in academia

A university campus is a remarkable place. It is a place of learning, scholarship, collegiality, inventiveness, and creation of knowledge that moves civilization forward. These coexist side by side with egotism, pettiness, petulance and personal rivalries. At the time I am speaking of, many a university was run by a scholar lacking experience or training to administer it, yet the institution continued to exist and function from day to day and from one year to the next, turning out graduates and publications at the steady rhythm of a metronome ceaselessly marking time. These two faces of a university campus are seen through the eyes of one who served as academic administrator under a succession of administrations. The campus of this novel cannot be found in listings of colleges and universities or on any map, because it does not exist. Neither does the mosaic of events described in this novel. Some might have happened at one time or another at some American university, but any similarity to actual events is purely coincidental. The characters depicted are completely fictitious, constructed with flesh and bones and endowed with features and character traits to fit their role in the unfolding drama. Any resemblance to living persons is fortuitous.

I arrived with my family on the shores of Palestine during the Arab riots of 1936 as a refugee from Nazi Germany. I am a veteran of the Israel War of Independence, for which I was awarded the Independence ribbon. In my home town Tel-Aviv I studied fine art and graphic design in my youth at the Urwand Studio, and have worked as an illustrator and commercial artist in both Israel and the U.S. As a member of thar studio I worked on the planning and preparation of graphic materials for the 25th Anniversary Exhibition of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I also designed and executed exhibitions in Tel-Aviv and produced book illustrations, including children books. Concurrent with artistic activities I studied mathematics at The Hebrew University, coming to the United States in 1955 to pursue my graduate education; I studied at Columbia University the University of Maryland, from which I earned a Ph.D. in mathematics. My scientific work includes six books on mathematics published by Harper and Row, Academic Press, and Dover, and articles published in mathematics and neural network journals. Fiction writing interspersed with mathematical research began in the 1980s, leading subsequently to the completion of an autobiography and five novels within the past ten years. During this period I continuedpublishing articles on neural networks and a historical study: From algebra to computational algorithms, soon to appear in print. I live in New York next to one of two daughters from a previous marriage and her family; my other daughter lives in Syracuse in upstate New York.