Mary Gentry doesn’t like to use the word “retired.” The engineer, former federal banking executive, and now consultant was looking for ways to stay busy once the pandemic slowed her workflow and the lockdown ended her ability to host dinner parties or visit friends domestically and internationally. “Friendship has always…

Author, educator, and broadcaster Alvin Hall is not easily pigeonholed. His work ranges from the arts to personal finance. Asked how he maintains such a broad range of endeavors, he describes a state of mind: “A friend of mine said to me recently, ‘You know your greatest skill set is…

Thinking about this column, I was reminded of a rhetorical device that an esteemed academic has frequently used: items at the top of his inbox. For me, there has been a plethora of items at the top of my inbox, specifically around the upcoming celebration of Juneteenth. Everyone likes a…

A few months ago, I discovered that National Teacher Appreciation Day and National Teacher Appreciation Week take place in early May. How wonderful, I thought, that the conversation about schools and teaching could, however briefly, shift away from the pandemic-influenced topics of the past 15 months. …

In my first #TeamUp column, I wrote about often being the only person of my race or gender in professional situations. That experience isn’t unique to me. My co-author, Bonita Stewart, and I found in our 2019 survey of four races and four generations of American female “desk workers” that…

ccording to family historians on my mother’s side, my great-grandfather Louis Thompson was born into slavery in 1844. He was described as a mulatto, meaning that he was a product of the rape culture of the time. It was a common practice for slave owners to rape the women they…

COMMENTARY ‘Master Negotiator’: James Baker and the end of the Cold War Shayna Brennan/AP President George H. W. Bush with Secretary of State James A. Baker III (on left) on the White House lawn on May 17, 1991. It has been only 32 years — not that long ago, really — since President George H.W. Bush and Secretary of State James…

Elliot Ackerman and Adm. James Stavridis have powerful crystal balls, the result of their extensive lived experiences in the U.S. military, academia, politics, and publishing. Who better to construct a cautionary tale of cyberwar, miscalculation, and terror? Published earlier this month, their “2034: A Novel of the Next World War”…

The Hinge of History: Political, Racial and Economic Philosophers, historians, and politicians have been asking a profound question of late. Are we living at a hinge of history, a moment of tremendous change that will influence the future of democracy in the United States as well as the fate of…