H. Wallace Goddard, Ph.D., is a Professor and Family Life Specialist with the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service. He has created numerous family programs and a PBS television series and has served on national committees for parenting and marriage. He has written several books for LDS, general, and professional audiences, including Drawing Heaven into Your Marriage, The Soft-Spoken Parent, The Frightful and Joyous Journey of Family Life, and My Heart Delighteth in the Scriptures: Personal and Family Applications as well as a revision of the classic Between Parent and Child. Wally has written for Meridian Magazine since 1999 – the first year it was introduced online – and has become one of Meridian’s most prolific, most insightful, and most loved columnists. Wally is unique in the way he combines scholarship, faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and sheer joy.
Dr. Goddard grew up in the mountains outside Salt Lake City, Utah. He got degrees at Brigham Young University in physics, math and education before teaching high school in subjects ranging from general science to filmmaking, from folklore to gifted and talented, from media to literature.
After teaching school for a dozen years, he returned to school, this time Utah State University, for a Ph.D. in family and human development. His dissertation research created and tested a new parenting program that applied discoveries in attribution research to parenting. His research established the merits of helping parents interpret their children in the most favorable light.
Dr. Goddard served as an extension specialist at Auburn University in Alabama for six years. During that time he studied teen behavior (he surveyed 14,000 teens!), developed a widely used parenting programs (Principles of Parenting), participated with a national team to develop a model of parent education (The National Extension Parent Education Model), and created a respected youth development program (The Great Self Mystery).
He took leave from Auburn University to help Stephen Covey write The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families and to develop application activities for improving family life. He also taught courses for Utah State University.
Dr. Goddard went to Arkansas in order to work again as an extension specialist, a work that he loves. He has worked with colleagues to develop a wealth of family resources including The Parenting Journey, The Personal Journey, The Marriage Garden, and See the World through My Eyes. Additional resources are posted on the University of Arkansas Extension website (www.arfamilies.org). He also provides training to county extension agents, speaks to public groups, and travels the world talking about families.
He and his wife, Nancy, have three adult children and a growing number of amazing grandchildren. Over the years they have also cared for twenty foster children. See more of the family doings at www.goddardfamily.com
