Early Career Mentors
It's difficult to imagine that anyone makes a career in academia without at least one great mentor. I had some good teachers in high school, but none I would label "mentors." But after high school I was fortunate to find three real mentors -- one in college, one in law school at Lewis & Clark, and one at Stanford Law School. The first was Herman "Hal" Lauter , a philosophy professor at Occidental College. I first met Hal in The Collegium, an immersive first-year program I was fortunate to get into. Instead of taking various freshman-level courses, students in the Collegium spent the entire year diving deeply into the liberal arts. Hal was the faculty leader of the small group within The Collegium to which I was assigned. From that time through my senior year, Hal was my advisor and friend. [I'm happy to say he's still my friend; I'm planning to visit him in So.Cal. in the new year.] The depth and breadth of his knowledge and his contagious exc...