More than five years ago, when I embarked on my doctoral dissertation journey, I tirelessly researched presidents and each one’s path to the presidency at one specific college. What I concluded, after several interviews, and much research and writing, is that the path at that specific college was and is certainly a nontraditional one. There has never been a president who came from outside the institution. The presidents whom I interviewed for my research all had other careers prior to embarking on the presidency.
![](http://s26601.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/10.02_creating-an-academic-culture-of-working-to-live-300x144.jpg)
Creating an Academic Culture of Working to Live
I’m often asked how I succeed at managing work-life balance—or as I call it, “life-work balance”— and it stems from my childhood. My parents both worked as educators, and