Parks, Sharon Daloz 1942-

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Parks, Sharon Daloz 1942-

PERSONAL:

Born 1942. Education: Harvard University, Th.D., 1980.

ADDRESSES:

Home—WA. Office—Whidbey Institute, P.O. Box 57, Clinton, WA 98236.

CAREER:

Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, formerly served as faculty member or in research positions at Harvard Business School, John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Harvard Divinity School, associate professor; Weston Jesuit School of Theology, Cambridge, associate professor; Whidbey Institute, Clinton, WA, faculty member and associate director.

MEMBER:

American Academy of Religion.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with Craig Dykstra) Faith Development and Fowler, Religious Education Press (Birmingham, AL), 1986.

(With Walter Brueggemann and Thomas H. Groome) To Act Justly, Love Tenderly, Walk Humbly: An Agenda for Ministers, Paulist Press (New York, NY), 1986.

The Critical Years: The Young Adult Search for a Faith to Live By, HarperSanFrancisco (San Francisco, CA), 1986.

The Critical Years: Young Adults and the Search for Meaning, Faith, and Commitment, HarperSanFrancisco (San Francisco, CA), 1991.

(With Thomas R. Piper and Mary C. Gentile) Can Ethics Be Taught: Perspectives, Challenges, and Approaches at Harvard Business School, Harvard Business School Press (Boston, MA), 1993.

(With others) Common Fire: Lives of Commitment in a Complex World, Beacon (New York, NY), 1996.

Big Questions, Worthy Dreams: Mentoring Young Adults in their Search for Meaning, Purpose, and Faith, Jossey-Bass (San Francisco, CA), 2000.

Leadership Can Be Taught: A Bold Approach for a Complex World, Harvard Business School Press (Boston, MA), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS:

Sharon Daloz Parks studied theology at Harvard Divinity School and subsequently served in a number of teaching and research positions at both Harvard Divinity and Business Schools, the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the Weston Jesuit School of Theology. She then moved to the Whidbey Institute, near Seattle, Washington, where she is the associate director and a member of the faculty. Parks's interests include theology, ethics, and leadership, as well as the ways in which faith can be incorporated into modern business life. She is the author of several books on faith and leadership, including Can Ethics Be Taught: Perspectives, Challenges, and Approaches at Harvard Business School, which was written with several colleagues at the institution and grew from the University's attempt to prove the answer affirmatively through a number of required courses included in their curriculum. Rosemary Park, in a review for Change, called the book "an immensely useful record that may well inspire emulation."

In Leadership Can Be Taught: A Bold Approach for a Complex World, Parks explains her point of view on different approaches to developing leaders, focusing on nontraditional methods of helping students to become leaders by tapping into qualities not normally considered assets in a position of authority. Her arguments rely heavily on the lessons of leadership instructor Ronald Heifetz, who has taught at the Harvard Center for Public Leadership. Paul Howard, in a review for the Howard Recruitment Web site, noted: "This book argues that today's complex times require a new kind of leader—one who can adapt to constant changes, learn in the moment and apply that learning to make wise business decisions. But to train this type of leader, we need a new approach to leadership teaching." Ken Baskin, writing for Emergence: Complexity and Organization, called the book "a provocative read," and remarked: "When examining her central purpose in this book, the teaching methodology of Heifetz, Parks gives us much to think about, an object lesson in how to teach the skills of a subject that, in itself, may be unteachable." Baskin noted that "for anyone considering leadership from a complexity point of view, especially anyone considering teaching leadership, this book is worth the read."

Big Questions, Worthy Dreams: Mentoring Young Adults in their Search for Meaning, Purpose, and Faith examines the relationship between young people and faith, including the ways in which young adults increasingly look for answers and meaning within themselves in our complex, modern society, rather than in the more traditional areas of faith and religion. Parks argues that people of this generation must be challenged to look at the deeper meaning in life, beyond the consumerism and high-paced ambitions driving existence in the twenty-first century. In a review for Library Journal, writer Antoinette Brinkman called Parks's effort "thoughtful, stimulating, and well-referenced."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 15, 2000, Candace Smith, review of Big Questions, Worthy Dreams: Mentoring Young Adults in their Search for Meaning, Purpose, and Faith, p. 590.

Change, September-October, 1993, Rosemary Park, review of Can Ethics Be Taught: Perspectives, Challenges, and Approaches at Harvard Business School, p. 69.

Chronicle of Philanthropy, January 26, 2006, review of Leadership Can Be Taught: A Bold Approach for a Complex World, p. 25.

Emergence: Complexity and Organization, April, 2006, Ken Baskin, review of Leadership Can Be Taught, p. 122.

HR, February, 2006, Leigh Rivenbark, review of Leadership Can Be Taught, p. 143.

Library Journal, November 15, 2000, Antoinette Brinkman, review of Big Questions, Worthy Dreams, p. 85.

Publishers Weekly, May 6, 1996, review of Common Fire: Lives of Commitment in a Complex World, p. 62.

Reference & Research Book News, February, 2006, review of Leadership Can Be Taught.