Parker Palmer

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Parker J. Palmer (born 1939 in Chicago, Illinois) is an author, educator, and activist who focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality and social change. His work speaks to people in many walks of life, including public schools, college and universities, religious institutions, corporations, foundations, and grass-roots organizations.

Palmer served for fifteen years as Senior Associate of the American Association of Higher Education, and now serves as Senior Advisor to the Fetzer Institute. He founded the Center for Courage & Renewal, which oversees the “Courage to Teach” program for K-12 educators across the country and parallel programs for people in other professions, including medicine, law, ministry and philanthropy. See [1].

He has published a dozen poems, more than one hundred essays and seven books, including several best-selling and award-winning titles (see below). Palmer’s work has been recognized with eight honorary doctorates, two Distinguished Achievement Awards from the National Educational Press Association, an Award of Excellence from the Associated Church Press, and major grants from the Danforth Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, and the Fetzer Institute.

• In 1993, Palmer won the national award of the Council of Independent Colleges for Outstanding Contributions to Higher Education.

• In 1998, The Leadership Project, a national survey of 10,000 administrators and faculty, named Palmer as one of the thirty “most influential senior leaders” in higher education and one of the ten key “agenda-setters” of the past decade: “He has inspired a generation of teachers and reformers with evocative visions of community, knowing, and spiritual wholeness.”

• In 2001, Carleton College gave Palmer the Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award.

• In 2002, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education created the “Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award”, given annually to the directors of ten medical residency programs that exemplify patient-centered professionalism in medical education. See “ACGME Awards” [2]

• In 2003, the American College Personnel Association named Palmer a “Diamond Honoree” for outstanding contributions to the field of student affairs.

• In 2005, Jossey-Bass (San Francisco) published Living the Questions: Essays Inspired by the Work and Life of Parker J. Palmer written by notable practitioners in a variety of fields including medicine, law, philanthropy, politics, economic development, K-12 and higher education. ISBN 0-7879-6554-5

Parker J. Palmer received the Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1970. A member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quaker), he lives with his wife, Sharon Palmer, in Madison, Wisconsin.

[edit] Books

• Palmer, Parker J. (1980). The Promise of Paradox: A Celebration of Contradictions in the Christian Life, Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, IN. ISBN 0-87793-209-3
• Palmer, Parker J. (1981). The Company of Strangers: Christians and the Renewal of America's Public Life, Crossroads, New York. ISBN 0-8245-0601-4
• Palmer, Parker J. (1983, 1993). To Know as We are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey, Harper, San Francisco. ISBN 0-06-066451-7
• Palmer, Parker J. (1990, 1999). The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity and Caring, Jossey-Bass Inc, San Francisco. ISBN 0-7879-4934-5
• Palmer, Parker J. (1998). The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life, Jossey-Bass Inc, San Francisco. ISBN 0-7879-1058-9
• Palmer, Parker J. (2000). Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, Jossey-Bass Inc, San Francisco. ISBN 0-7879-4735-0
• Palmer, Parker J. (2004). A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey toward an Undivided Life, Jossey-Bass Inc, San Francisco. ISBN 0-7879-7100-6

A complete bibliography of Parker J. Palmer's books, articles, interviews, etc., will be found in Sam M. Intrator, ed., Living the Questions: Essays Inspired by the Life and Work of Parker J. Palmer (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005), from which the information on this page was taken.