I fell in love with economics reading Adam Smith's {\em The Wealth of Nations} in a great books course in high school, but I thought of economics more as entertainment than an academic endeavor. Mathematics was my college major until the end of my junior year, when I was invited to write an honors thesis in economics. I jumped at the opportunity and officially declared economics my major.

Wellesley was a wonderful place for women in the `60s. Although graduate school was the furthest thing from my thoughts when I arrived, by senior year Carolyn Bell had convinced me that I would love studying for a Ph.D. Continuing my studies was appealing, especially in light of reactions to my engagement the summer after my sophomore year. Everyone in my hometown expected me to quit school immediately. After all, the reason for going to college was to find a man and I had done that well: I was marrying an MIT man. Offended that anyone thought I would quit school, I wanted to show them that marriage did not mean the end of education.

While my husband was building nuclear submarines for the Navy in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, I earned a master's degree in quantitative economics at the University of New Hampshire. After his experience in the Navy, my husband looked at jobs in New York and Chicago, so I applied to Columbia and Chicago. I was actually rooting for Chicago, but Tom got the better job offer in New York and, at that time, I would never have considered living in different places.

Columbia in the late `60s was intellectually fun. I took classes with Becker, Mincer, Burns, Chow, Lancaster, Kenen and Hart. Of the 90 students in our class about a half dozen were female. I never felt discrimination. However, the faculty did not understand what an excellent education women received at Wellesley. When I aced Mathematical Economics and had the second highest average in the entire graduate economics program, the Department Chair was flabbergasted. He said no one had expected me to do that well, although, once I had proven myself, the Department was very supportive. The Chair suggested that I apply for, and helped me to win, a presidential fellowship, an NSF and an Earhart.

While studying at Columbia, I didn't have a career goal. I just wanted to understand the way the world worked. Then, as I thought about my life, an internal struggle ensued: knowledge was the goal, but children would be the center of my life. I began to realize I would go crazy without academic stimulation and decided I would eventually become a college professor. Tom wanted children but otherwise was happy for me to work. Ironically, I had kidded throughout grad school that we would have a child by his 30th birthday and I delivered our first son on the eve of his 30th birthday and a month after receiving my Ph.D.

In the spring of 1971, as I looked forward to completing the Ph.D. and the birth of our child, I thought I would wait several years before seeking a position. But my wonderful, gray-haired advisor said, ``This is the `70s; a woman can work and have children.'' Once he said that, I thought deeply about seeking a position at a top ranked institution, but I understood my competitive zeal and knew I would go all out for tenure. That, I believed, was totally incompatible with raising children, and decided to seek a job at a teaching institution near home. I received several job offers that met that constraint, and I chose Fairleigh Dickinson University.

The '70s were great years to be at Fairleigh Dickinson. Many women, who had married and dropped out of college, wanted to complete degrees and FDU had three campuses conveniently located in the suburbs of northern New Jersey. Many of my economics students were women who had begun their studies at MIT, Vassar and other schools. They were excited to be back at school and were preparing seriously to enter the labor market for the first time. I was a tenured full professor by 1979.

Once our younger son was in school all day in the early `80s, I accepted the position as Chair of the Economics and Finance Department for the Madison NJ campus. Later I became Chairman of the Tri-campus Department of Economics and Finance, which had over 700 graduate students seeking MBA's. It was a wonderful challenge to run a Department of 40 men. Faculty and administrators kept telling me how pleased they were with the way I was running the Department, and for many years I enjoyed it. However, I was finding it impossible to make time for the level of reading and learning that I loved.

When our first son was accepted at Princeton, he teased me that I wanted to go to Princeton more than he did. He was right. (He went to MIT.) In 1989 I wrote to Alan Blinder, then Chairman of the Economics Department at Princeton. I recognized that I had not published enough to be considered for a full time position at Princeton, but was it possible to come as a visitor? Alan invited me to teach Introductory Microeconomics as a visitor. Teaching at Princeton was my dream job. The students liked my teaching and I enjoyed them. I also had the opportunity to attend cutting edge graduate seminars and to spend more time studying new ideas to incorporate into my classes.

After returning to FDU, I received an offer from Princeton for a newly created position: Senior Lecturer in Economics. I resigned my position as a tenured full professor and declined an offer to be Associate Dean of the FDU business school, all for a three- year appointment as a Senior Lecturer (with the possibility of renewal). In taking the position, my only concern was in letting women down. I worry that women don't seek and take management "line" positions. I felt guilty doing what I wanted, rather than becoming a Dean and seeking higher positions in university management. Nevertheless, the Senior Lectureship was the perfect position for me -- an opportunity to focus on teaching and to pursue whatever enhances my ability to captivate students and help them to learn economics.

For example, when I wanted my macroeconomics students to understand Japan's recession, I made appointments to talk with academics, businessmen and government officials in Japan. In addition to bringing back a deeper understanding of the issues and some pictures to highlight my lecture, I also found it easier to convey a high level of enthusiasm, which is electric in a classroom. More recently, I have spent time developing Powerpoint slides for computer projection in class. The Senior Lecturer position allows time for developing new approaches to teaching that the research faculty generally cannot afford.

My position at Princeton has been a win-win situation, as I complement the research faculty. No matter how research-oriented a university or how gifted the student body there are many services that students need from faculty. These include answers to individual questions, help with course selection and sequencing, and discussion of graduate programs and careers. With 280 majors in our Department there is a lot of necessary contact time. Our Department also requires that every junior write a independent research paper and every senior write a thesis. Many students come to me for guidance in selecting a senior thesis topic and an advisor. I know what most of my colleagues are working on and can greatly increase the efficiency of the matching process by getting the right people together. It is also important that our Department be represented on committees that approve course or curricula changes so I serve on the University Committee on the Course of Study.

The belief in academia that publishing research is the only way to demonstrate ability and to enrich our teaching is not consistent with our economic theory of multi- product production. Universities produce both new knowledge and the teaching of existing knowledge. It is unlikely that the same people will always be the best at both, especially at the undergraduate level. Perhaps even research universities need a few more teachers hired for their ability to inspire students--teachers who devote their time to understanding and communicating the newest ideas across a discipline.

Without having to focus narrowly on making a new contribution in one sub-field, I attend graduate research seminars in a number of areas and read widely. It is my ideal of the intellectual life. I have forged my own career path as the economic generalist and teacher trying to excite college students with economics as a tool for understanding the world in which they live. I have worked very hard, and the result has been that I have had the career and lived the life I wanted. Could I have asked for more?