Shirley Hershey Showalter was the first woman college president of Goshen College, first Mennonite college president to be given a leadership award by the Knight Foundation, and first person in her fa..
Shirley Hershey Showalter was the first woman college president of Goshen College, first Mennonite college president to be given a leadership award by the Knight Foundation, and first person in her family to go to college. Like most Mennonites, she has received strong messages about the dangers of pride and humility. In this talk, Showalter reflects on how she dealt with conflicting aspirations in the writing of her award-winning memoir, Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World. Showalter grew up on a Mennonite family farm near Lititz, Pennsylvania. She was named the first woman president of Goshen College in Indiana, a position she held from 1996 to 2004. After six years as an executive at the Fetzer Institute in Kalamazoo, Michigan, she became a full-time writer. Her memoir was named a Best Spiritual Book of 2013 by Spirituality & Practice.
