Tenured Professors and Passionate Learning
03-10-2010

In December, during the Modern Language Association Convention in Philadelphia, I spent my last morning at the conference wandering through the book exhibit, with the luxury of a few hours to do nothing but browse. Because I have a brother who teaches at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland, and I have visited him there a few times, a booth advertising the Scottish Writing Exhibition caught my attention, and I stopped to see what it had to offer.

I spotted a few books by authors...

Choosing a Development Career
03-09-2010

Have you ever asked yourself, "Why am I in the fund-raising field?" That question can be answered in any number of ways, mostly depending on what type of day it's been on the job. But have you ever taken a step back and really thought about why you've chosen to do this kind of work?

I find myself constantly explaining my job to friends and others who ask. It seems no one can quite grasp what it is we do—ask people for money—or how we do it. Recently, I had the opportunity...

Whose Job Is It, Anyway?
03-08-2010

It is a question I have come to dread. Usually, the person asking it is a nervous graduate student who is, both figuratively and literally, looking over his shoulder as he whispers to me at the end of my talk: "But what if your adviser doesn't want you to search for a nonacademic job?"

Sometimes the question comes in an e-mail message sent to the Web site I run for historians seeking to work outside academe. There, the questioner often signs her message with just a first name, as...