Thanks so much for taking the next step and reading my blog. This is my first entry for this website. I certainly hope that you will eventually be one of the readers of my memoir Experience is the Angled Road: Memoir of an Academic (Koehler Books), launch date August 23, 2022. I will keep you informed along the way to that day!
But that is not the sole reason for this blog. I am hoping that we can create a community of principled, courageous, curious individuals interested in the topics that inform the book.
Those topics include living and leading from the periphery (such as being the only woman on a president’s cabinet or the only Jew in a conversation about prejudice in the faculty lounge of a regional institution of higher education in the mid-West); overcoming loss, disappointment, and chronic disease; embracing an unexpected change in life direction and flourishing in a space never imagined.
All of these personal experiences for me (and I suspect for everyone else reading this blog) have been informed by the generous mentors who helped mold my life, by those who loved me (parents, grandparents, children and the love of my life) and by the earth-shattering events of the late 20thcentury. The book focuses on my years before I was named president of The College of New Jersey, as the years from 1948-1999 provide the foundation for almost 20 years as the CEO of an exceptional public institution of higher education (the discussion of those years are fodder for the SECOND memoir).
I am hoping for many opportunities to engage with you on topics that matter for the future of the world and humanity. Watching the apocalyptic images of Ukraine has been almost overwhelming, particularly on the heels of the last 2 years, images of a transformed Manhattan in March 2020 and of outraged crowds on the heels of the murder of George Floyd. But rather than fall into despair, I am uplifted by memories of the strength and heroism of surprising and unexpected leaders—doctors and nurses in hospitals in Queens, NY; young protestors defying police and filming the attack on Floyd; a former comedian, a Jew, now the voice for millions of Ukrainians and billions of freedom loving people everywhere; and those amazing women leading their children and parents out of harm’s way in Ukraine
Well done! I look forward to more….
Thanks, Peggy!
Bobbi, I have never read a blog in my life but clicked on this only because it came from you. Once I clear my head from recent events, I will look forward to reading alot more that you have to say. Having entered what was once a male dominated profession I, too, was often the only woman in the room early in my career. And I was usually the only white person in the room when socializing with my best friend from law school. As a result of the latter experience, I am never in any group of people without instinctively checking the room or the event to see if there is any true diversity – by that I mean more than one or two token faces that aren’t white.
Thanks for including me.
Jane
Thanks for getting over your resistance to reading a blog. . . .Hope you read more. Sorry I did not respond earlier.