The Well House Reader: Students Reflect on Indiana University Bloomington through the Years. (Well House Books)

What did generations of Indiana University students think about their years on campus―the faculty, courses, administration, pressing social issues, and each other? Through student writings and art featured in The Well House Reader, the Bloomington campus across the years vividly and sometimes whimsically comes to life.

Featuring selections from more than 150 years of student writing, The Well House Reader, edited Donald J. Gray, demonstrates how students voiced their views and opinions through their contributions to campus magazines and yearbooks. From the use of satiric couplets to ridicule university president Cyrus Nutt in 1872, parody and caricature to mock the Ku Klux Klan in 1924, and long form essays to complain about the university administration in the 1960s, IU students always made their opinions clear. They wrote burlesques to mock their teachers, essays to honor them, and short stories about the satisfaction and sadness of graduation and departure from their beloved alma mater.

Poignant and revealing, The Well House Reader offers unforgettable glimpses of Indiana University through the eyes and experiences of its students across the decades.

Donald J. Gray is Culbertson Professor of English Emeritus at Indiana University. He has served as editor of College English and Victorian Studies. At Indiana University, Professor Gray received the university's Distinguished Teaching Award, its Distinguished Service Award, the President's Medal of Excellence, and the Bicentennial Medal for his distinguished service to the university.