“And I said to my soul, what have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?”
~ Antonio Machado
David Hagstrom has been offering Courage to Lead retreats for more than 10 years, work to which he’s always felt called. He is especially grateful to have been involved in “The Portland Project” in which two successive cohorts of principals each met over an 18-month period in a series of residential Courage retreats, the project touching the lives of 40% of Portland Public School principals. He’s also had the privilege to bring Courage work to Oregon superintendents, New Orleans teachers post-Katrina, educators in New York and Maryland, clergy and lay leaders in the San Francisco Bay area, and to a book group for community leaders in a small rural town in central Oregon.
Active in the field of school leadership for over 50 years, David has served as an elementary-level principal in the Midwest and Alaska; based on those experiences he authored From Outrageous to Inspired: How to Create a Community of Leaders in Our Schools (Jossey-Bass). He has also taught prospective and practicing school leaders at the college-level, most recently at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. He graduated from Grinnell College, holds a masters degree from Harvard University, and earned a doctorate from the University of Illinois. Currently, David is also sharing his writing and perspective online at “That Magic Time: Illuminating Life and Work.”
