OUR STAFF

Director

Director Peggy Whalen-Levitt has been with the Center since its beginnings in 2000. Working closely with Center Founder Carolyn Toben and cultural historian Thomas Berry, Peggy has been deeply engaged in the formation of a work for adults and children that cultivates an “I-Thou” relationship between human beings and the natural world.  She holds a Ph.D. in Language in Education from the University of Pennsylvania, where she co-created a concentration in Childhood Imagination. Peggy is the editor of Chrysalis, the Center journal, and Only the Sacred: Transforming Education in the Twenty-first Century, a Chrysalis reader. She edited the Center’s Emergence Series in 2015 and shepherds the Center’s program for educators, “The Inner Life of the Child in Nature: Presence and Practice.” Peggy has an abiding interest in working collaboratively with soul and spirit in small organizations through deep listening and presence to what is calling from the future.  As Director, Peggy is liaison to the Educator Council Board.

Children’s Program Staff

Eric McDuffie is a PhD student in Environmental Studies at Antioch University New England.  Eric has been inspired by his childhood experiences of fly fishing with his grandfather and the writings of Thomas Berry to devote himself to the creation of contemplative fly fishing programs for children, young adults, and families that embody a sense of the sacred.  Eric earned a BS in biology with a secondary science teaching certification from UNC-Chapel Hill, followed by a master of environmental management degree at Duke University’s Leadership Program within the Nicholas School of the Environment.  For over a decade he taught middle and high school environmental science and has twice received Environmental Educator of the Year honors from the state of North Carolina.  Eric graduated from the Center’s Inner Life of the Child in Nature program in 2016.

Stephanie Kriner first connected to the Center for Education, Imagination and the Natural World through her two children, who have participated in its “Thomas Berry Summer Programs for Children” and its “Awakening to Nature” program. A former newspaper reporter and international disaster writer for the American Red Cross, she has volunteered to write stories about the Center’s work. In addition to writing and editing, Stephanie, who holds a BS in mass communication from James Madison University and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from George Mason University, has taught English to high school and college students and currently substitute teaches in Greensboro. Now ready to deepen a practice of silence and wonder, Stephanie is excited to learn from and to share her love of the natural world with children. She is most content when she is outside – whether walking on a trail at Timberlake, sitting on her own back porch, searching for shells on the beach with her children, camping with her family at a state or national park or hiking in the mountains with her dog. She is a graduate of the Center’s “Inner Life of the Child in Nature:  Presence and Practice” program, class of 2017.

Andrew Levitt holds a BA in English from Yale University and a PhD in Folklore from the University of Pennsylvania. He trained as a mime with Marcel Marceau and with Paul J. Curtis at The American Mime Theatre. Andrew performed and taught mime professionally for over thirty years and then helped found the high school at the Emerson Waldorf School in Chapel Hill, NC where he taught Humanities and directed theater for seven years. Andrew co-created a performance piece, “The Meadow Across the Creek: Words from Thomas Berry” for the Thomas Berry Centennial and is the author of All the Scattered Leaves of the Universe: Journey and Vision in Dante’s Divine Comedy and the Work of Thomas Berry, published by the Center in the Fall of 2015, and Heron Mornings, published by the Center in the Fall of 2017. As Dr. Merryandrew, he currently works as a clown doctor in the Pediatric unit at Moses Cone Memorial Hospital in Greensboro, NC. Andrew is a graduate of the Center’s “Inner Life of the Child in Nature: Presence and Practice” Program, class of 2008.