Nana practiced law for a dozen years on Wall Street and then in Nebraska. She retired in 1998 and raised three children. She has served on the boards of numerous charitable organizations over the past 35 years, primarily in the arts, education and child welfare. She thoroughly enjoyed being a docent at the Whitney Museum of Art and a copyist at the Metropolitan Museum of Art while her husband was the Chancellor of the City University of New York. During this time, she also championed a groundbreaking project which established year-round housing and support for CUNY students who came from the NYC foster care system. In Austin, where her husband leads the University of Texas system, she loves being a docent at the Blanton Museum and serving on the board of the Texas Book Festival and the Advisory Council of the Harry Ransom Center on the UT Austin campus. She has read everything Willa Cather wrote at least twice. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road was her bible for a few years. Her favorite contemporary authors include Colm Tóibín and Colum McCann.
