This nuanced collection of chapters from academic colleagues around the world documents their personal experiences of becoming and being a member of faculty or staff in a college or university. These are not just biographies, they are critical self-reflections and commentaries on what happened to our institutions over the course of a career as well as insightful reflections on what being an academic, teacher, researcher, community member, evaluator and colleague really means. Full of great stories, this is one of those books that should be given to every new hire to any higher education institution with the instruction “read this before you say yes to the contract!”