Readings
from Book by Smith Educator to Echo through Halls of Congress
 WASHINGTON, D.C. – This Tuesday evening, June 10,
Smith faculty member Samuel M. Intrator will read aloud,
but not at the bedside of his children. Instead, Intrator’s
audience will assemble in the Congressional office building
in the nation’s capitol.
Intrator, associate professor of education and child study,
and his co-editor, Megan Scribner, will present a public
reading of their book Leading from Within: Poetry that
Sustains the Courage to Lead, on June 10, beginning
at 6 p.m.
“What is most gratifying
about Leading from Within is
that so many people tell us they use the book,” said
Intrator. “It’s not just sitting pristine on
a bookshelf, but it’s being used and appreciated.”
The event, organized by
the bipartisan interfaith congressional organization called
the Faith & Politics Institute, will
feature readings by four lawmakers, who are among the nearly
100 leaders from a smattering of professions represented
in the book.
In addition to selecting a poem, each leader provided a
brief personal commentary in the book explaining its significance
and meaning in his or her life and work.
Smith alumna Tammy Baldwin ’84, the first woman from
Wisconsin—and the first “out” lesbian—elected
to Congress, selected for the book the following passage
from “The Rock Will Wear Away” by Holly Near:
“Can we be
like drops of water falling on the stone
Splashing, breaking, disbursing in air
Weaker than the stone by far but be aware
That as time goes by the rock will wear away
And the water comes again” |
In making her selection,
Baldwin wrote, “Every movement
for social change…has taken time and comes at a heavy
price.
“In the day-to-day
quest, frustration can easily overwhelm hope. These lyrics
always remind me, and I use my position to remind others,
that great change takes time. Just as the majestic Grand
Canyon was carved away over eons by drops of water, the
cumulative action of countless individuals has the same
force to create dramatic and meaningful change in society.”
Other Smith contributors
include alumna Nicole Gagnon ’07,
who chose an excerpt from Emily Dickinson’s “ ‘Hope’ is
the thing with feathers,” and President Carol T. Christ,
who chose William Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey.”
“I often turn to ‘Tintern Abbey’ to find
in it the tranquil restoration that the poem itself finds
in the scene it contemplates along the river Wye,” wrote
Christ. “As educators, we believe that we help shape
our students by leading them to moments of contemplation
and insight to which they may return, just as I have turned
to this poem first as a student, then as a scholar of nineteenth-century
poetry, and now as a college president.”
In addition to being celebrated tomorrow in Congress, Leading
from Within recently won a silver medal from the Nautilus
Book Awards in the category of Conscious Business and Leadership.
Along with an earlier book by Intrator and Scriber, titled Teaching
with Fire, the two publications have thus far sold more
than 90,000 copies.
Royalties from the sales are donated to fund professional
development scholarships for educators and leaders in the
serving professions, said Intrator.
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