Rodin talks on leadership, inspiration

Drawing on her own experience and that of famous leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., University President Judith Rodin presented her views on "Inspiration and Leadership" Tuesday night at the Newman Center. Drawing a crowd of more than 40 students, professors and clergy, the event was organized by the Newman Council, a group of Penn students who are responsible for planning the program of activities for the University's Catholic campus ministry. In her speech, Rodin explored each of the four ideals she identified with leadership -- courage, wisdom, passion and vision -- analyzing the meaning of each concept and citing leaders whom she believed exemplified each trait. Rodin offered such figures as Mother Theresa and King as models of individuals who were memorable both for their leadership qualities and for their work as a whole. When asked to name a personal hero, Rodin again spoke of King and the "inspired faith that allowed him to do what he did." Despite threats to his family and to himself, King pursued his activities when he "could so easily have walked away," Rodin explained. Rodin said she admired King's sense of obligation to his vision and his ability to "put his own personal needs in second place." Rodin also discussed the issue of compromise as one of the duties of a leader. She expressed the belief that compromise is necessary, but that "making no decision is also a decision, and I think that it's a weaker one." Choosing an example from her career as president, Rodin described the difficulty of trying to weigh the opinions of all campus groups in her decisions, and asserted that it is better in some cases to make a decision in favor of one group in order to see tangible and effective results than to take no action in an attempt to please all. After her speech, Rodin took questions from the audience. She spoke enthusiastically on the subject of teaching, noting that "[teaching] is my best access to the Penn students." Rodin, who taught a preceptorial and a seminar class in the past two years, said she is looking forward to teaching again. She mentioned the possibility of participating in a class on decision-making that could be offered to the University community in the future. Rodin also said she wishes to see Penn attain recognition as "among truly a handful of leading universities all over the world." In order to accomplish this, she said that Penn must lead the way into the information age as a great center of knowledge. Students who attended the event praised both Rodin's speech and her choice of topic. College freshman Alex Fleming said "[leadership] is something we need to talk about more, because we're building the leaders of the future here, and good leaders are hard to find." College senior and Newman Council President Christine Albanese said Rodin's speech was "exactly what we had envisioned," adding that she found the event "very inspirational."