When things get difficult, shift into observer mode and try to take the long view, suggests Audrey Budding—fitting advice from a history scholar. A fixture at Commonwealth since 2005, Ms. Budding has always been fascinated by stories about people in the past, particularly those with a touch of mystery...

1. What three words best describe Commonwealth? 

Cozy, intense, kind.

2. What’s your #1 piece of advice for Commonwealth students? 

When things get difficult, see if you can shift into observer mode to figure out what is working and what is not. And try to take the long view, even though that’s hard to do when your life so far has been short. 

3. What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received? 

This is not advice addressed to me, but something I have found helpful in many different situations: “Don’t believe everything you think.” It’s a Buddhist teaching, but I first encountered it in one of Louise Penny’s novels, A Great Reckoning. 

4. What does your ideal afternoon entail? 

It depends on the time of year, but if I get to pick I will say late May or early June. I would first spend a few hours in my garden doing any task except weeding. Then I would sit and admire my handiwork, perhaps with a glass of lemonade and a mystery by Louise Penny, Patricia Wentworth, or Hazel Holt.

5. If you could teach any class aside from your own, what would it be? 

I would like to teach a class on Middlemarch. 

6. Whom do you most admire? 

I admire a man whose name I have never known. Around the year 1900, he saved my grandfather’s family during a pogrom. He was a Gentile who made the choice to give shelter to the Jewish families in his village. If he had made a different choice, I would not be here. 

7. Which word or phrase do you most overuse? 

“It could be worse.” 

8. When and how did you first become interested in history? 

I cannot really remember a time when I was not interested in hearing stories about people in the past, and that’s history!

9. What do you find is the biggest misconception about teaching? 

I think sometimes students imagine that if you teach history, you know the answer to any question about the past. I wish! 

10. What is your favorite aspect of your work? 

The times when I can help students work through things that have been difficult for them.

11. How do you define success in your classes? 

I hope that students come away feeling that the past was as complex as the present is. We only think it was simpler because we know less about it. 

12. What are people surprised to learn about you? 

That until I was four, I spoke Swedish (my mother’s language) more than English. Unfortunately, when I started school, I totally lost my Swedish. 

13. What book do you wish you had read sooner? 

It’s hard to choose. Perhaps Deborah Crombie’s first mystery (A Share in Death), because I then read and enjoyed all the rest! In case this hasn’t come across yet, mysteries are my main leisure reading…

14. Fall, winter, spring, or summer? 

I love both spring and fall, and I can tolerate winter. Summer, not so much. 

15. What is your favorite museum? 

Definitely the Gardner.

16. What is your favorite mode of transportation? 

Horse-drawn carriage, not that I have experienced it often. 

17. If you could live as a local for 48 hours anywhere in the world, where would you go? 

The Orkney Islands. 

18. If you could join any past or current music group, which would you want to join? 

Perhaps the Beaux Arts trio. Of course, first I would have to acquire some musical talent. 

19. Who would you want to play you in a movie of your life? 

Meryl Streep.

20. What is your most treasured possession?

It really is my garden, if I can call that a possession. I have tried to make it look as much like an English cottage garden as possible, allowing for climate differences and the fact that we don’t have a cottage. 

Bonus: What is your motto?

I think I can, I think I can.

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