This month, Carol Geary Schneider speaks with What I Do about her role as president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and how she uses her background in history to further the AAC&U’s mission: advancing and strengthening liberal education. “When history is done well, you’re always thinking about the ‘so what?’ What are the consequences of a set of interactions and developments both short-term and long-term? This is what [the AAC&U] is doing now. We have to advance certain kinds of change with an eye toward the larger societal impact,” she explains. Schneider’s unique perspective and conscious responsibility to history enables her not only to explain the historical significance of a liberal education but also to analyze and organize emerging themes in order to move liberal education forward.

What I Do features short video interviews with history PhDs across the spectrum of professions.  Each month, different historians describe what they do, how they got their job, what makes their job interesting and challenging, and what they love about their work.

The What I Do project complements the AHA’s existing program funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and conducted in partnership with the Modern Language Association for broadening the career horizons of humanities PhDs, as well as the Malleable PhD and Tuning Project.

For more from Carol Geary Schneider and the What I Do series, please visit Association of American Colleges and Universities.

This post first appeared on AHA Today.