Road Scholars Speakers Bureau

Susan Schmidt, Ph.D.

Licensed boat captain

Beaufort, NC

H: (252) 269-0032

susu@starfishnet.com

Travel regions: During school year—8, 10, 11, 13 

                         During winter, summer breaks—1–4

About Susan Schmidt:

Susan Schmidt holds a Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of South Carolina and Masters degrees in Environmental Sciences and in English from the University of Virginia. She has worked as environmental analyst and editor for US Department of Interior, NC Coastal Management, and Virginia Sea Grant. She has held a Coast Guard Operator’s license for over 20 years. In the 1980s she delivered sailboats from the east coast to the West Indies. Dr. Schmidt has taught at the Carteret Community College, NC School of Science and Math, Duke University, N.C. State University, University of Virginia, College of Charleston, Warren Wilson College, and Brevard College. She has held fellowships from AAUW, NSF, NEH, EPA, and Fulbright. Her book Landfall Along the Chesapeake: In the Wake of Captain John Smith was published in 2006.

Hearts a' Busting: Southern Appalachian Literature

In the Southern Appalachian Mountains where wilderness still abounds, writing is place based—from early naturalist explorers like William Bartram to Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain. Southern mountain writers such as Fred Chappell, Robert Morgan, John Ehle, and Wilma Dykeman also examine place in fiction, poetry, and essays. Dr. Susan Schmidt connects literature to natural history, traditional music, folklore, and Native American and Euro American cultures.

Program requirements: PowerPoint projector or slide projector, screen

Landfall Expedition: Tracing Capt. John Smith’s 1608 Chesapeake Voyage

In the summer of 2002, Dr. Susan Schmidt completed a four-month, 2,500-mile solo voyage circling the Chesapeake Bay, following the route of Capt. John Smith’s 1608 voyage of discovery. As a natural historian, she examines journals of the early colonists and naturalists, particularly at Roanoke and Jamestown, to compare landscape and wildlife to what the early colonists in NC and Virginia found four hundred years ago. As an environmental scientist, she compares the relative decline of Virginia’s and NC’s water quality in the last two decades. Many colorful slides illustrate Schmidt’s history/natural history program.