Continued...Faculty Spotlight: David Gilligan

His first book, The Secret Sierra, The Alpine World Above the Trees, was born from the graduate work in Natural History and Ecology that David completed at Prescott College. He describes this book as an extension of his master’s work and meant specifically for an audience that is familiar with and loves that area.

Accomplished for his 34 years? No doubt. However, the road to professordom and authorship was not always so clear. The now Professor Gilligan was terribly close to dropping out of high school at age 16. He found himself exasperated by the long list of required courses in high school. He was merely a few pen strokes away from completing the necessary documents to voluntarily end his high school career when a heart to heart with his guidance counselor turned things around for him. “My guidance counselor explained to me how different college was and how I would have choices about what I was learning.”

David followed the advice of his guidance counselor, graduated, and attended Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida for two years. “I took one class with a philosophy professor and I was hooked,” he recalls, “I was really sold on learning how to think, exploring the world of ideas and spiritual belief systems.”

After two years at Flagler College studying Religion and Philosophy, David transferred to Prescott College where he focused in on Natural History and Ecology for the remainder of his undergraduate study and eventually for his master’s work as well.

Religion, philosophy, natural history, and ecology…all the disciplines David Gilligan has studied are very present in his writing and his everyday life. “I enjoy engaging in things that require focus and concentration—that could be meditation, or building a canoe, or working on the passage in a book—things that require presence and engagement. I like to practice pure awareness, of the self within the context of the larger environment, as being inextricably related to that environment. That’s why the practice of natural history is paramount for me; it’s a discipline that like all the great spiritual traditions of the world involves concentration or focus and awareness of the self in a larger context. Only a select few undergraduate institutions of higher learning really get what natural history is all about. The fact that Sterling College gets it, and so many students that come here want to engage in the discipline, is inspiring. It is good reason to stay awhile.”

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