Does leaving the academy mean someone failed? Or does it mean, instead, that their scholarly strengths can now be made useful to the public?

Diana Bellonby
Diana Bellonby is a nonprofit director and cultural historian. She co-runs the Fringe Foundation, a grantmaking organization committed to social justice through community-led organizing. She writes about gender and race in 18th- and 19th-century British literature and philosophy. (Author photograph by Jonene Nelson)