Parker J. Palmer

Parker J. Palmer is founder and senior partner of the national Center for Courage & Renewal, which oversees “Courage to Teach”, “Courage to Lead” and “Circle of Trust ™” programs for people in the serving professions (including education, medicine, ministry, law, and philanthropy), as well as people in other walks of life. For fifteen years, he served as Senior Associate of the American Association of Higher Education. He now serves as Senior Advisor to the Fetzer Institute.

A writer, traveling teacher and activist, Dr. Palmer focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality, and social change. His work has spoken to people in many sectors of our society, including public schools, college and universities, religious institutions, corporations, foundations, and grass-roots organizations.

He has published a dozen poems, some two hundred essays, and six books in addition to Let Your Life Speak, including several best-selling and award-winning titles with Jossey-Bass: A Hidden Wholeness, The Promise of Paradox, The Courage to Teach and The Active Life.His next book, scheduled to publish in 2011, is tentatively titled The Politics of the Brokenhearted: Opening the Heart of American Democracy.

Dr. Palmer’s work has been recognized with ten 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, he 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 Dr. 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, stating, “He has inspired a generation of teachers and reformers with evocative visions of community, knowing, and spiritual wholeness.”


• In 2001, Carleton College gave Dr. 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.


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


• In 2005, Jossey-Bass 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.


• In 2010, the Religious Education Association gave Dr. Palmer their triennial William Rainey Harper Award for outstanding contributions to the field. Previous recipients include Elie Wiesel, Paolo Freire, Margaret Mead, Marshall McLuhan, and Martin Marty.

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

Other Books by Parker J. Palmer