Page 10, The Institute Report, August 2010
Leadership Center to Facilitate Major Conferences in 2010-11 By Wendy Lovell
The Virginia Military Institute is no stranger to playing conference host, but with a fully staffed and completely finished Center for Leadership and Ethics, serving as host for major events has become an easier task. This year, the CLE will bring together members of the VMI community and beyond to focus on leadership, Eastern and Western relations, and the environment. The facility offers an ideal setting for a wide variety of topics and audiences. “We have been discovered as a facility and are booking events into 2012,” said Capt. Susan Rabern, acting director of VMI’s CLE. “Faculty who have not been able to offer a forum for conferences for organizations they’re involved in now have one. Most importantly, we want to offer a robust program at the CLE, and we want to make sure that the conferences we choose to host highlight the themes of leadership and ethics.” More than 200 participants are expected in Lexington Oct. 4-6 for “Answering the Nation’s Call for Leaders of Character,” the inaugural VMI Leadership Conference, which will take place biennially. Among the confirmed speakers and panelists are Dr. Edward Ayers, president of the University of Richmond; Lt. Gen. Robert Caslen Jr., commanding general of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth; author and Army veteran Craig Mullaney of the U.S. Agency for International Development; and retired collegiate and National Football League coach Bobby Ross ’59. While other speakers are being finalized, the CLE has nailed down a format Rabern thinks will build excitement for next leadership conference in 2012. The CLE is planning a series of workshops on cyber warfare, cheating and honor systems, and leadership and dissent on Monday afternoon before the conference officially begins. The keynote address Monday evening will focus on the urgent need for leadership in America. Conference targets include faculty, students, and business leaders, and the plenary panel, breakout sessions, and addresses are designed to share a variety of experiences and perspectives so that conference-goers can learn from one another. “We came to the theme of the conference in response to the crisis of leadership in America today,” said Rabern. “We didn’t want to limit the conference to the academic arena; we wanted to include leaders who are receiving our graduates in the workplace, too. For instance, a plenary panel of college leaders and corporate CEOs will discuss the challenges of selecting leaders in today’s society.” In the spring, the CLE will shift its focus to the global arena when VMI hosts “711-2011: East Meets West” March 23-25. This cross-cultural conference will focus on themes including literature, religion, history, language, politics, pedagogy, and Islamic-Christian amity. The conference is timed to help mark the 1,300th anniversary of the historical circumstances that brought the Eastern and Western worlds into contact and will provide discussion on the legacies and ramifications of that historical event. The conference is funded in part from a grant VMI received in 2008 from the U.S. Department of Defense to enhance its Arabic studies program
and provide opportunities for cadets to study the language and culture. Col. Kathleen Bulger-Barnett, head of the department of modern languages and cultures, will assist the CLE staff as program coordinator for the conference. “This conference gives us the opportunity to go beyond what we see on the news each night to talk not about war but about the culture and beauty of these two parts of the world,” said Rabern. “This event will give us a chance to celebrate the blending of Eastern and Western cultures. We plan a call for papers to allow the academic side to be represented, but as with the leadership conference, we want to involve the business community by inviting Fortune 500 firms who are involved in the Middle East to attend as well.” VMI will play host April 5-7 to the 22nd annual Environment Virginia Symposium, a conference it has facilitated for years but which now has a new home in the CLE. Last year’s conference was the first for which Marshall Hall served as the main venue, and the facility received high marks from conference-goers. “It was great to have all major activities under one roof and to have such excellent audio-visual and a beautiful atmosphere,” said Maj. Amy DeHart, acting deputy director of the CLE. “We are looking forward to beginning work on the next Environment Virginia Symposium later this month.” While the three major conferences planned for the current academic year are keeping the CLE staff busy, Rabern said her staff is looking forward to future events, such as a conference on the United States, Africa, and China in November 2011 and Virginia’s Civil War Sesquicentennial Signature Conference in March 2012. Both are conferences that will place VMI in the national spotlight and will further strengthen the CLE’s mission of developing leadership qualities in VMI cadets.