The philosophy department was looking for alumni with interesting and surprising careers when it began its new program, “What Can You Do With a Philos-ophy Major?” They found exactly that in Burt Carlson ’59.
After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Wabash, Carlson was a Fulbright Scholar in Germany, earned his doctorate of divinity at Yale, and went on to work on the staff of both the Department of Labor and Department of Education, among many other roles.
Speaking to students in September, Carlson linked his success to his education at Wabash, where he learned to love learning and exploring new subjects. The common thread between the many projects and jobs of his career? He’s always looking for a challenge.
In his retirement, those challenges include poetry. He wakes up at 5:30 each morning to write.
Sterling Carter ’07 has studied and reported about African nations for Global Witness and Human Rights Watch, worked for Search for Common Ground in Nigeria, and volunteered with the Peace Corps in Niger. But his current assignment in South Sudan may be his most interesting and most dangerous.
Carter returned to campus in September to talk about his work as an international protection officer with Nonviolent Peaceforce in the country the U.S. State Department labeled “the most fragile state in the world.” Part of his job includes contextual analysis of human rights and humanitarian issues in the country, and he provided an eye-opening glimpse of the roots of the conflict there.
“What I do is protection work of civilians,” Carter said.