Skip to content

“Dr. Mommy”

Enjoying a successful career at some of America’s best- known companies, Darlene Motley paused to reflect  upon getting married. “I knew I wanted children, and I was traveling a lot. I did not want both of us to be working long hours and traveling all the time. “I wrestled over how to make the job…

Read More

More Than Money

Seeking out a new career path upon retiring from the Navy, Ulysses Brown taught middle school for a while, then enrolled in advanced graduate studies in psychology. Along the way, he began assisting a faculty member in research. One day the professor pulled  him aside and asked, “Do you know the difference between a Ph.D.…

Read More

When a Big Salary Isn’t Enough

As he contemplated shifting gears in his life plan radically—from highpowered, hefty-salaried corporate executive to the professorial podium of academia—Melvin Smith made a big mistake. He assumed that becoming a management professor would slash his income drastically and permanently. But, several years later, Dr. Smith not only leads a comfortable life, he earns nearly as…

Read More

To MBA or Not to MBA, II?

Once Dr. Brett Gilbert decided to pursue an advanced degree in business, she cut right to the chase. She bypassed earning an MBA, focusing sharply on her ultimate goal. She enrolled directly in a Ph.D. program. And, like many others who had reached similar decisions before her, she soared. “Having an MBA does not necessarily…

Read More

A Well-timed Invitation

Dan Stewart, back in his undergraduate days, paid more attention to his professors than did most of his classmates. He was sizing them up as potential role models. “I liked watching my professors, and I held them in high esteem,” he says. “I thought that being up there and doing that was something I’d enjoy.…

Read More

Programmed to Succeed

From high school days in his native Ethiopia on, Amanuel Tekleab yearned to become a professor. Spurred by parents who lacked formal schooling but placed great value on education, he set out after his dream. The path led to seven years of teaching business in his homeland, and then to the United States, where he…

Read More

Banking On A New Career

As a retail branch manager and vice president for one of the world’s premier banking companies, Patricia Hewlin often found herself at the front of a training classroom, instructing employees in job skills. Before  long, this rising corporate star realized that teaching, even more than banking, was her calling. Fortunately, her employer knew just what…

Read More

Urban Entrepreneur to Academic

In a career that started on the streets and has now turned to academia, Jeff Brice, Jr. has run his own film production company, headed a construction business, and  worked on job-development with ex-convicts and welfare mothers. As an affordable housing developer, he recalls, “We’d go into drug-infested properties, kick out the dealers, and then…

Read More

Something That Lasts

Millicent Nelson, born to a family full of academics and students, recalls that “teaching was a gift from God to me; I was always the one teaching people how to do things.” But she restricted her instructing to the corporate world, where “I was having a great time” in seventeen years of frequent travel, promotions,…

Read More

“I’ll Get Involved in Your Life”

Sammie Robinson was a child of the 1950s. “I come from a background,” she explains, “where the most optimistic dream was that I would attend a small Black  college and maybe become a teacher.” But business appealed to the young woman, and although she did attend college, “it was a vocational experience.” After graduating she…

Read More