In Away From The Ivory Tower I interview college and university faculty as I try to answer the basic question " What is it that academics do?". When I asked myself this question I realized that I knew little about what my friends and colleagues did as part of their teaching, research and everyday academic life. Although I am surrounded by thoughtful and creative people who belong to a variety of disciplines, due to the nature of college and university life I know little about their interests and expertise. The purpose of this podcast is to bring forward the narratives of my fellow academics, so I get to know them better and for a snapshot in time see the world from their perspective. By engaging in this process I hope to be able to demystify academia by getting my friends and colleagues to share their academic journeys, their research interests and what sustains them as educators.The music used in the podcast is "Phantom from Space" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/Available on iTunes, Stitcher and Google Play Music.