My work

I write speeches for top executives and thought leaders and op-eds for publications like the Financial Times, New York Times,Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy, Slate, as well as several European and Asian outlets.

I write for a range of corporations, non-profits and political clients, enabling them to make their cases more forcefully to readers who need to know why to care. Sometimes that means writing to U.S. and foreign officials, other times to Washington insiders, and on good days, even the general public.

Kenyon connection to the job search

I got my current and at least two previous jobs thanks largely to faculty or friends I met at Kenyon. I cannot emphasize enough what a difference Kenyon makes in a (large) city, particularly a company town like Washington.

There might be tens of thousands of Harvard or Yale graduates in Washington, but even if you went to all the alumni events, you wouldn't know who they were. Kenyonites in Washington actually know one another, and they help you along in the world, even when you graduated decades apart. The connection is so palpable that my non-Kenyon friends always joke that I'm part of "the Kenyon mafia."

Key Kenyon experiences

I'd cite several political science professors. In her seminar on Rousseau's Emile, Pamela Jensen taught me that sometimes the reader is paying more attention to my writing than I am, and I shouldn't let that happen. In both her "Liberal Democracy" and "Modern Democracies" classes, Pamela Camerra-Rowe taught me that everything is comparative politics; you can't understand your own surroundings until you can see them from the perspectives of people in entirely different circumstances. And in "Moderns vs. Ancients" as well as his seminar on Montaigne, Fred Baumann taught me how to stay cool while confronting someone a lot smarter than me, which has helped when confronting people who are dumber but higher up on the food chain.

Why Kenyon?

A liberal arts education is invaluable. If you know right now that you want to be an aeronautical engineer, a belly dancer, or a deep-water drill operator, Kenyon probably isn't the right fit for you. But if you have somewhat less of an idea how you want to spend your time on earth, you'll probably benefit by an education that exposes you to the greatest possible range of experiences.

From the writings of the ancient Greeks to modern politics, Pashtun tribal codes, great art and literature, music, foreign languages, history, math, and science, a liberal arts college has it all. And you never, ever know when something you learned at Kenyon is going to be of use to you out in the world.