Marian Chace Foundation Lecture: Introduction of Dr. Sharon W. Goodill
Marian Chace Foundation Lecture: Introduction of Dr. Sharon W. Goodill
Ellen Schelly Hill 0 1
0 Department of Creative Arts Therapies, College of Nursing and Health Professions, Drexel University , 1601 Cherry Street, Mail Stop 7905, Philadelphia, PA 19102-1192 , USA
1 I'm here to introduce you to Dr. Sharon W. Goodill, the Marian Chace Foundation speaker this afternoon. There is almost no one whose praises I would rather sing. In her commitment to a thriving dance/movement therapy (DMT) profession, Sherry is the right speaker in this future-forward bookend of a year celebrating the 50th anniversary of the American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA). Sherry moves the profession forward. It is an honor to introduce her as a professional leader whom I also have the good fortune to know as a colleague and dear friend. On Sherry's door at Drexel University, where she is a clinical full professor and chair of the Department of Creative Arts Therapies, is a quote by George Bernard Shaw. An excerpt from the quote reads:
This is the true joy of life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one?. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can?. for the harder I work, the more I live.
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Sherry models hard work to those around her, from whom she expects the same. She
encourages our best, and we often find ourselves rising to meet her challenge and
accomplishing more than we had planned.
Sherry has served us all on the ADTA Board for a total of 19 years. As ADTA
committee and board colleagues you know how she has supported us with her
systems thinking and clarity. I suspect that the board may still reflexively channel
Sherry at times when it encounters gnarly problems.
For 10 years she served as chair of the Committee on Approval during which she
instituted Alternate Route course approval. In 2011, when Sherry entered the ADTA
presidency, she said to me, ??I take this as an opportunity to learn about leadership,
when everyone thought she already had leadership in the bag. Her presidency was
guided by the Vision 2016 strategic initiatives, which were dedicated to ??optimizing
the vitality of dance/movement therapy careers.?? To this purpose, her legacy
includes serving as liaison in a developing relationship with the National Institute
for Arts in Health in the Military, skillfully navigating with us, our mobile
relationship with counseling, providing consultative support to state licensure
efforts, drafting and tasking white papers, championing the development of the
ADTA webinar initiative, and spearheading a DMT practice analysis.
Sherry holds a Ph.D. in medical psychology with a concentration in mind-body
studies from Union Institute, earned while working full time and parenting Libbie
and Claire, young adolescents at the time. A researcher and scholar, Sherry was
awarded funding in the first rounds of exploratory research grants from the Office of
Alternative Medicine within the National Institute of Health. In 2005 Sherry
authored the pioneering text, An Introduction to Medical Dance/Movement
Therapy: Healthcare in Motion. She has since made numerous contributions to
the body of DMT and creative arts therapies professional literature. She serves on
the editorial board of The Arts in Psychotherapy: An International Journal and
previously on the Journal of Creativity in Mental Health.
Many of you, students past and present, know Sherry best from her 36 years as a
DMT educator: challenging your critical thinking; engaging you in learning
collaborations; and supporting you in resourcing your own vitality and talents. You
may know her as students in the former Hahnemann, now Drexel University, DMT
graduate program, as students in the Hahnemann-affiliated programs in Israel and
London, or as participants in assessment and medical DMT workshops here in the
U.S and in Australia, Germany, Korea, and Belgium.
While effectively carrying multiple roles and responsibilities, Sherry has a sense
of proportion. In the academic setting, she is fond of saying, ??there is no such thing
as an educational emergency.?? She understands this from sharing her life with her
husband John, a palliative care physician who knows well true matters of life and
death. Sherry does not shy from the dark and difficult either. She is a frequent voice
for social justice.
And there is poetry in Sherry. She embraces the rich language of metaphor.
Sherry is a dancer. She has continued for 34 years to dance and perform with a
circle of women in Wilmington. Watch as she dances at the banquet tomorrow
evening. As one of her students once said, ??Sherry can dance me under the
table anytime.?? She is passionate about the art in DMT at the same time that she
asserts its science.
In honor of Sherry?s love of metaphor and dance, I asked a few people, ??If Sherry
were a dance, what dance would she be???. I leave you with Cathy McCoubrey?s apt
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