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Up until a few months into her senior year, Barbara Kahn Moller ’78 , a government major, believed she was “heading to law school directly from dmore.” But over Thanksgiving ak, she changed her mind. She lls, “As soon as I got back to school, ent crying to Erwin Levine, who was faculty advisor, frantic about what I going to do. He calmly said, ‘Take sy—you are smart, you have a lot of rgy, so just go to Washington, D.C., a job, and get started. In fve years you will be doing something you have never even heard of.’”

He was right: Barbara did go to Washington and worked for two years before enrolling in the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania to earn an MBA and then becoming an equity research analyst on Wall Street—a job she says she “had no idea existed” when she started business school. She worked with the U.S. House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Committee and the U.S. International Trade Commission, and was a longtime employee of Kidder Peabody as an equity analyst. She also worked in high-yield research for Lehman Brothers, before moving abroad in 1991 and shifting her focus to family and volunteer activities.

Besides her fond memory of Erwin Levine, Barbara also recalls “watching professor Tad Kuroda manipulate students into taking the side of the ‘losers’ in a particular historical event, staying up late writing papers, having long serious conversations, listening to music, drinking cheap white wine, and living in Scribner Village. Junior-year abroad at the London School of Economics was an important time too.” She admits there were also “lots of laughs and stupidity.”

But once she joined the working world, the only Skidmore connections she maintained were with a handful of friends and her two favorite professors. Until her 25th reunion, she says, “I was ‘missing in action’ as far as the school was concerned and would not have come to Reunion without some serious ‘arm-twisting’ by several classmates.” A simple conversation with Jill Holler Durovsik ’78 set the wheels in motion for reconnecting with Skidmore, and not long after, Barbara joined the Tang Museum’s National Advisory Council. She was living in London at the time and had been unaware of the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, “but as a volunteer with the education department at the Royal Academy, I was interested in museum education,” she says.

Now also a class agent and trustee, as well as the mother of recent graduates

Beatrice ’13 and Alexander ’11 , she says she’s learned a few things in getting reacquainted with her alma mater: “The value of a Skidmore education becomes more apparent over time; the College faces challenges in staying connected with students who tend to be independent, creative, and interdisciplinary; and the fnancial requirements necessary to stay competitive are tremendous.”

Barbara feels privileged to serve on the Skidmore Board of Trustees and has enjoyed the opportunity to work with and be inspired by other board members. She says, “The same holds true for being on the Tang National Advisory Council. The Tang has added a very exciting and intellectually important dimension to Skidmore, and I am honored to be something of an insider.”

“As soon as I got back to school, I went crying to Erwin Levine, who was my faculty advisor, frantic about what I was going to do. He calmly said, ‘Take it easy—you are smart, you have a lot of energy, so just go to Washington, D.C., fnd a job, and get started. In fve years you will be do-ing something you have never even heard of.’”