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Robert H. Ferrell discusses his tenure as a professor at the Indiana University Department of History. He describes how his experiences as a soldier in World War II made him interested in studying history. He talks about his graduate experience at Yale and his mentor, Samuel Bemis. He describes the writing of his dissertation, and other publications after that. He talks about people he knows in the history department, and contacts with other historians in the United States. He describes the importance of being a good teacher as well as a good scholar, which he feels are inseparable despite the push in universities today where scholarship and publishing are valued far above teaching skills. He speaks of the declining quality of students since the 1960s. Finally, he speaks of the reasons for his retirement.