Leadership and Silence

Jerry Swope, Department Chair and Professor, Digital Media and Communications

BY SUSAN SALTER REYNOLDS

eadership used to mean action to me. Now it means listening.” After 20 years teaching at Saint Michael’s College, Jerry Swope finds he learns more and more listening to his students, from the conversations they have in the classroom, and by giving them the tools they need to tell their stories. It’s important for them to have this time to explore the things they really care about.

In grad school at the Missouri School of Journalism, University of Missouri, Swope saw the potential of photography to tell stories that needed to be told. In these early years, he saw leaders who served as guides and leaders who served as stewards. He saw leaders on the lacrosse fields, in classrooms, and in the newsrooms in Missouri, Idaho, Utah, and Maine that he worked in after college.

From 1995 to 1998 and 2000 to 2002, Swope lived on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Working on a photo essay about contemporary Lakota life called “Living in Two Worlds,” Swope saw several different kinds of leadership. “The Lakota are very careful with their choice of words; there’s not a lot of unnecessary chatter. In traditionally oral cultures, words tend to have more value.” He saw the true importance of silence, and this has become a part of his own journalism. Precision with language and clarity in communication are, for Swope, important aspects of leadership.

Swope’s photographs have been published in the New York Times, USA Today, the Boston Globe— Globe Magazine, Vermont Life, Sydney Morning Herald—The Age Magazine, Middlebury College

Magazine, Burlington Free Press, and Rapid City Journal and on the Vermont Public website. His work has been exhibited at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., the Helen Day Arts Center in Stowe, at the University of Vermont Center for Cultural Pluralism, and in the juried show of the South End [Burlington] Art Hop.

At this point in his life, the importance of leadership in parenting is a rich source of inspiration. “You have to be a good listener; you have to be present; you should set a good example; you should understand where others in the family are in their lives, and what they need; and you should recognize that these people are a priority.”

As a parent, he explains, “I’m also a teacher, but I communicate differently.

I’m sharing what I know based on my lived experience.”

Swope believes that the new direction toward purposeful learning at Saint Michael’s is a form of leadership in the world of higher education. While many other schools have turned from the liberal arts in favor of career-based skills, Saint Michael’s leadership is determined to help students see that true leadership must be based on an ethical foundation.

Parent, teacher, photojournalist, lacrosse player, and chair of an increasingly popular department, Swope thinks carefully before answering questions about leadership. He laughs when told that he often says, “it depends.”

As a photographer, he has learned to see from many angles.