Stepping Outside the Ivy Walls
Post-Academe brings New Opportunities, New Benefits
By Phaedra Brotherton
FAIRFAX, Va.
Drs. Johnnie and Leroy Miles have a special partnership. Married for 35 years, they have supported each other in their educational pursuits and even taught at the same university for 22 years. And when Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) offered the two then-associate professors the opportunity to take early retirement, they took it, and transitioned out of academia together.
“I said, ‘well, there’s my chance.’ I was the first one on the list,” says Leroy Miles. “I took the buyout, and Johnnie was already doing her thing. She was already on leave so she decided to take it, too.”
Today, Leroy is a senior financial adviser, and Johnnie owns her own management consulting firm. And they couldn’t be happier.
Being a university professor was a pleasant experience, Leroy says, but he also says he never was really into an academic career of teaching theory and concepts and doing original research. In addition, he found it challenging to work in an environment that had so few minority students, staff and faculty.
