Meet Circle of Trust Facilitators in Vermont

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Ken Bergstrom

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“Let the beauty that we love be what we do.” –Rumi

I’ve been a teacher and a teacher-educator in Vermont for nearly forty hears. I’ve worked in small rural schools with young adolescents and taught in several undergraduate and graduate-level institutions, including UVM, Trinity, Goddard, and Union Institute. Extensive experience with the health care field adds another critical perspective to my understanding of the demands of the service professions. My perspective as a social psychologist allows me to envision a world that blends teaching and learning, helping and being helped, guiding and being guided. I believe that our humanity emerges in these mutual role encounters where we arrive at a common understanding of how we reconnect who we are with what we do. As a Courage & Renewal facilitator since 2000, I enjoy bringing all of my Self—head, heart, and hands—to my work with people in the service professions. Those who give so much and who are continually asked to do more need support to reconnect with their inner Selves and renew their best intentions.

David Leo-Nyquist

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I’ve had a high school focus to my school-based work over the past 30 years as a humanities teacher, college-based teacher-educator, VISTA program director, and whole-school coach. My work these days centers around helping school faculties develop the capacity to transform their schools, and I spend much of my time on-site helping principals and teacher-leaders "connect the dots" of their various initiatives. I’m a national facilitator for “critical friends group” (CFG) work, affiliated with the School Reform Initiative. I’m a school reformer at heart, and I love working with educators who are committed to making their schools into more collaborative, loving, and humane places for everyone. My Courage work is about helping the people who do the heavy lifting in schools and other care-giving organizations—who are my cultural heroes—to slow down and take better care of themselves. I’m currently expanding my horizons beyond the K-16 educator world to do more retreat-based work with clergy and other professional groups.

Carol Egan

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I began my Courage adventure with a 2-year retreat cohort in 2003. I had been teaching in early childhood special education for 16 years through many challenging circumstances, and I was open and ready for inspiration, for a deepening into my vocation, and for a period of self-examination and reflection. My home life is rich with involvement in my community, my large family, and supportive friends. I’m mother to a blended family of 7 children, and an only child of parents who are both losing their identities to Alzheimer’s. When my cohort ended, I continued to work with Ken and David in a mentoring relationship and eventually attended the facilitator preparation program with Parker Palmer at the Fetzer Institute in Michigan. I was part of a cohort with colleagues from Alaska to Australia who work with non-profit and business leaders, higher education, clergy, and medical professionals—truly a cross-professional and diverse group. I often feel the overwhelming challenges of being an educator amidst the current political and social climate. I’m seeking a community of peers where my truths and stories about teaching can unfold and where I can reconnect with the deeper reasons that brought me to working with young children and their families. My participation in Courage & Renewal retreats, over time, has given me that experience of community. Each day in my work as I greet young children and their families, my experience with Courage work allows me to bring my best self forward with confidence and integrity.

Last Updated: Monday, May 24, 2010