Barbara Mossberg

Educator and Poet

  • University Educator and Administrator, poet, essayist.
  • Dr. Mossberg is Professor of Practice, Clark Honors College, University of Oregon. Previous positions include: President Emerita of Goddard College, Vermont; Senior Scholar, James McGregor Burns Academy of Leadership, University of Maryland; Director and Professor of Integrated Studies at California State University Monterey Bay, and founding dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Science. She has served as as Senior Fellow for the American Council on Education, U.S. Scholar in Residence (Federal Appointment), Senior Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer – Bicentennial Chair of American Studies (University of Helsinki); and is a leading international education specialist, humanities scholar, and poet. She performs lectures, poetry, and drama on the topics of educating for joy and reverence. As an educator promoting the role of arts and humanities in public policy, she serves on several local and national boards.
  • Dr. Mossberg’s poem “John Muir Takes a Sauna with the Finnish Ladies of Kuopio” was Grandprize Winner of the Abbie M. Copps Award, and has been republished in various formats. She has authored several other poems on John Muir as well as essays, and is writing a book about the meaning of his life and work for us today.
  • Mossberg states that she has been greatly influenced by John Muir, including “how I look at the environment, read the paper, behold a tree, and in general approach my day and days. There is not a day that goes by that I do not invoke Muir’s teachings. I never use the word “glory,” “glorious,” “behold,” without thinking of Muir, and the fact that I use them at all, and so often, shows the influence of Muir on my daily discourse and response to life. I see differently because of Muir’s writings. I live differently because of the way Muir lived his life and the choices he made. I invoke his spirit in my talks to educators, media, students, board members, foundations, and the public in general. He is a daily presence to me.”
  • Dr. Mossberg is a frequent keynote speaker on Muir for conferences and organizations internationally and in the U.S. ranging from the Washington, D.C., Sierra Club, Lilly Conference on College and University Teaching at Miami University, Monterey Historic Garden League, Big Sur Environmental Institute, CSUMB Watershed Institute, UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law, University of Utah School of Medicine, Willows Theater, John Muir Center University of the Pacific, University of Maryland Academy of Leadership, Yosemite Conservation Heritage Center at Yosemite National Park, Carl Cherry Center for the Arts, The Forest Hospital Annual Fundraiser (Truckee, California), and others. In Feburary 2007 she delivered the keynote at the annual Phi Beta Kappa conference on John Muir. She addressed Muir’s relationship with America’s presidents and the role of his writing in affecting national policy and legislation.
  • In 2009, she was inducted into Pasadena’s John Muir High School Alumni Hall of Fame, for her work on promoting the environment through the arts. On sabbatical from her university, she later worked with the high school on her drama musical on “Muir, Trees!” -the tree-mendous story of the role of poetry and song in saving our earth. It was produced for their Springfest 2011.

  • Dr. Mossberg’s book in progress is University of the Wilderness: What we learn from the art and science of John Muir — What the world needs now.

  • Her latest Muir project is to consider him through the lens of his wife Louie Wanda. She has written several poems from Louie’s point of view, and has written a performance script that combines her original lyrics with the songs he and Louie Wanda sang at their local Grange in Martinez.

  • In all her work, she strives to do justice to John Muir.

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