Award-winning scholar, educator and author Maria Lichtmann will speak at Gordon College on Saturday, March 31, at 11 a.m. in the student center auditorium. Her talk is entitled “Teaching From the Heart of Love.” The event is free and open to the public.

A graduate of Yale University, Lichtmann now teaches at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C. In her recent book, “The Teacher’s Way: Teaching and the Contemplative Life,” Lichtmann connects education to the life of the spirit and to the heart of the teaching experience.

“Nothing is more crucial to teaching,” Lichtmann writes, “than replenishing the underground springs of a teacher’s own inner life.”

Lichtmann, a Catholic, has spoken on teaching and spirituality to teachers from kindergarten through college and to parents and religious education teachers. Dr. Jason Horn, a professor of English at Gordon College, noted, “Much of her book discusses … how the rule of St. Benedict and monastic practices in general can be useful in connecting the life of the spirit to the life of the mind, something teachers and students of all stripes could use.” Her talk will suggest how all who teach and learn might find a more inwardly satisfying experience with texts and one another.

Gordon College is located at 419 College Drive in Barnesville.