John Millemon

Assistant Dean, Learning Center, Richland Campus
Program Facilitator, Center for Renewal and Wholeness in Higher Education

John Millemon’s deeply personal involvement with the Center for Renewal and Wholeness in Higher Education (CRWHE) comes from a place of both passion and pain. As a program facilitator, he had for years helped other educators dare to integrate their deepest authentic selves into the workplace through improved communication tools and enriched peer support.

John Millemon shares his passion through CRWHE.

In the painful aftermath of surviving a March 2010 car accident that killed his wife, Cecilia, and sister, Mary Jane, he turned to the center for help himself. There he found the kind of emotionally supportive environment he had long encouraged others to construct. In gratitude, he has generously donated $25,000 so that others may benefit from its services as much as he has.

“The center has been a very important part of my life, especially when I lost my wife and sister together,” he says. “Many of the participants and facilitators just rallied around me. It was a big part of my being able to recover.”

The CRWHE, sponsored by Dallas College and the League for Innovation in the Community College, prepares facilitators to lead renewal activities for educators through a specific communication process geared to both give and receive support more effectively in the workplace. Precepts stem from Parker J. Palmer’s Center for Courage and Renewal, a non-profit organization providing support for serving professions. “The point is learning how to be more effective personally, and then any organization we’re a part of also becomes more effective,” says John.

John serves as assistant dean in the Learning Center of Richland Campus, where the CRWHE is based. The Learning Center helps students integrate academic success with goal achievement and community involvement, dovetailing with his outside renewal and wholeness work.

John Millemon chats with student Jeanine Sterling.

“I do have a passion for personal growth and this is what I try to share with students,” he says. “I have a vision of what they can be – not the way they are but what they can be.” He is also a member of North Texas Courage and Renewal, a regional organization based on Palmer’s concepts of integrating authentic personal wholeness and improved communication into the workplace.

“The center’s work is about coming across according to what’s really in your heart,” says John. “It’s about finding wholeness in ourselves.”

“I do have a passion for growth and this is what I try to share with students.”

– John Millemon