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Alumni and guest speakers addressed students at the 10th annual Lafayette Leadership Institute Feb. 5 in Marquis Hall.
A record number of registrants – over 200 students – attended the event, which had the theme “Step Up, Stand Out: Discover the Leader in You.” Invitations to the annual event alternate between experienced student leaders and emerging ones, with the latter having their turn this year. The first-year students and sophomores who attended already are leaders or were nominated by faculty members based on their participation in their First-Year Seminar class.
Riley Temple ’71, a Lafayette Trustee, chair of the presidential search committee, and founder and partner of the law firm Halprin Temple, presented the keynote address, “Step Up: Answer the Leadership Call.” In addition to inspiring students to become active leaders, he discussed when it is appropriate to accept or decline a leadership opportunity.
Workshops following Temple’s address covered topics ranging from leadership at Lafayette and study skills to developing the tools of an effective leader and exploring careers through Lafayette alumni.
The first block of workshops started with “The Team Leader in You,” presented by James L. Kohl ’97, dean of residential life and education at The George Washington University, and included a group discussion about the relationship between being a citizen in society and a leader in the Lafayette community. Tim Silvestri, coordinator of Drug and Alcohol Services in the Lafayette Counseling Center, introduced study strategies and concepts to maximize the effects of long hours of studying. The block concluded with a discussion by Jadrien Ellison ’02, coordinator of intercultural development, about “true colors” and how leaders utilize individuality to be successful.
In the second block of workshops, Char Gray, director of the Landis Community Outreach Center, presented “Serve and Stand Out,” which outlined different volunteer opportunities. David Veshosky, professor of civil and environmental engineering, Dan Bauer, professor of anthropology and director of the Technology Clinic, and A.B. engineering majors Emily Groves ’05 (Madison, N.J.) and Josie Dykstra ’05 (Doylestown, Pa.) discussed the EXCEL Scholars and Technology Clinic programs. Debrah Cummins, assistant director of Lafayette College Fund, used Steven Covey’s book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People to present tools for lifelong leadership. Rachel Moeller ’88, assistant director of Career Services, discussed how to use the alumni network to its fullest.
The final block of workshops featured small discussions with distinguished alumni. Students learned to prepare effective scholarship applications from Julia Goldberg, assistant dean of postgraduate studies and fellowship adviser, June Thompson, postgraduate studies and fellowship assistant, and international affairs major Ryan Beattie ’05 (Worthington, Mass.). Students also learned how to organize, establish funding for, and publicize campus events from Amy Ahart ’97, assistant director of student life programs and assistant to the dean of students, and Kate Robbins ’05 (Wilbraham, Mass.), a mathematics major and chair of Lafayette Activities Forum.
At his firm, Temple practices telecommunications law and represents telecommunications clients before agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Congress. His experience in telecommunications law includes serving as assistant general counsel at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, legislative assistant to Sen. Charles McC. Mathias (R-Md.), and senior counsel to RCA Global Communications in New York City.
While working as communications counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Temple also was an Oliver Cromwell Cox lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. His latest position before entering private practice was assistant vice president for communications policy at Bell Communications Research, Inc.
The American studies graduate endowed the College’s David L., Sr. and Helen J. Temple Scholarship for Study Abroad and Visiting Lecture Series in Africana Studies. He is board president for the True Colors Theatre Company, a national black theater company that he co-founded. He is a member of the Community and Friends Board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the National Archives Foundation, the Board of Trustees of the Smithsonian Museum of American History, the Federal Advisory Committee to the FCC on Diversity in the Digital Age (and chair of its new technologies sub-committee), and the Vestry of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C.
Temple is a former board member of the Washington, D.C. public broadcasting station WETA, the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia, the Ellington Fund of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, the Green Door, the Corcoran Board of Overseers, the D.C. Commission on National and Community Service, and the District of Columbia Bar’s Task Force on Sexual Orientation and the Legal Workplace. He is a 1990 graduate of Leadership Washington and an emeritus board member of the Human Rights Campaign and the Washington Theatre Awards Society (the “Helen Hayes Awards”).
Admitted to practice in Virginia and the District of Columbia, Temple received his juris doctor from Georgetown University and is a member of the Federal Communications Bar Association.
Sponsored by the Office of Student Life Programs, Lafayette Leadership Institute is made possible by the Class of ’68 Leadership Fund. For more information, contact the Office of Student Life Programs at x5337.