Experience is the Angled Road: Memoir of an Academic is about leadership. R. Barbara Gitenstein’s narrative captures the shock and the humor she faced as a leader when confronting the obstacles of being the only “whatever” in the room (woman, Jew, southerner, liberal).
Her parents moved from New York City to a small town in Alabama, where Gitenstein was born and raised. While Southern etiquette prevented most citizens from overtly antisemitic slurs, she knew from a young age that she just did not fit. When she left for boarding school in the 8th grade, she discovered that it was more than being Jewish and a Yankee that made her an oddity. She was an intellectual; she loved classical music and imagined singing at the Metropolitan. She survived painful loss and life-changing challenges.
Before entering academe, Gitenstein learned to lead from the periphery, benefitting from exceptional and surprising mentors.
