John McPhee '53 could not stay away from Old Nassau forever. After graduating, he had established himself as a prolific nonfiction author of books and articles before accepting an invitation to serve as the University's Ferris Professor of Journalism in 1975.
McPhee has maintained a dual identity of teacher and writer, striking a balance that other professors active in the world outside FitzRandolph Gate have found one way or another.
Though he said in an interview that he still thinks of himself as a writer at heart and never harbored any other career goals prior to teaching here, he has been pleasantly surprised with the life of an educator. Not only have students provided him with a welcome change from the solitary life of a writer, he said, but they also refresh him with new ideas and points of view. "I had no idea how complimentary [teaching] would be to the main work I do," he said.
"It really takes me back to myself," he added.
He did, however, say that he found it humorous that after 27 years at the University, he is not yet considered a full-fledged professor.
"They call it a 'visiting professor,' which I find humorous. I'm not visiting, nor am I a professor," he said.
McPhee won a 1999 Pulitzer Prize for his nonfiction work, Annals of the Former World, which took 20 years to write. He is now working on a nonfiction work about fishing while teaching a course for sophomores on creative non-fiction.
Like McPhee, Joyce Carol Oates, the Roger S. Berlind '52 professor of the humanities, was a famous author when she was invited by then-director of the creative writing program Ted Weiss to join the faculty in 1978.
Oates has written over 70 books of various genres and having received a National Book Award in 1970, two Nobel Prize of Literature nominations and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature in 1998, among other accolades.
Though she established herself first as an author, Oates said she holds teaching and the classroom sacred in a sense.
"Everyone who teaches literature feels that only in a prescribed setting, ideally a classroom, can the work of art be considered purely in itself, with infinite patience and imagination. In ordinary life, in conversations, for instance, the 'art work' is generally a casual issue," she said, praising the virtues of intellectual dialogue that can take place in a classroom.
She also called the performance and potential of young minds at this University as "exceptional," and said she has never regretted her decision to become an educator, nor has she ever considered leaving Princeton to pursue other career goals.
Unlike Oates and McPhee, Robert George, the McCormick professor of jurisprudence, said he has always considered his primary vocation that of an educator. In addition to directing the University's James Madison program in American ideals and institutions, he is teaching a course this spring on civil liberties.
George said that his responsibilities as a teacher always take first priority regardless of outside opportunities that often present themselves as "urgent."
"Saving the world will sometimes have to be put on the backburner," he said of his commitment to education. "My vocation is one of a teacher and scholar."
George said he provides his students with what he calls "war stories" about his various government positions. Even though he said he had little political experience when coming to the University in 1986, he was appointed by former President Bush to serve on the Civil Rights and Liberties Council and was recently appointed to President Bush's Council on Bioethics.
George emphasized that his work in Washington enhances his ability to teach. He explained that the bioethics committee's current discussion of human cloning has led to particularly interesting classroom conversations. During these discussions, student insight and knowledge often impresses him, he added.
"The most rewarding moments are when my students teach me."
Like George, economics and Wilson School professor Paul Krugman also established himself first as an educator and second as a public intellectual.
In addition to teaching graduate-level courses in economics and international affairs, he writes opinion pieces twice a week for the New York Times. He has attracted national attention, and often criticism, for his controversial columns.
Krugman, who came to Princeton from MIT two years ago, said he "never figured on doing anything outside of academics."
The recent recipient of the illustrious Alonso prize for urban and regional economics, Krugman is also finishing an introductory economics textbook to be published next fall. Though occupied with many activities, Krugman said that he has never lost sight of his priorities.
"I am a professor first and foremost. I am a professor who does something else on the side," Krugman said.
"You do have to pay your dues as a real academic, but later on you can experiment. It's a career with a lot of possibilities," he added.
George summed up the fulfillment to be had from prospering in more than one career.
"I have an opportunity to do something I love, and something I love on the side," he said.
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