Sponsored by the Council of Inspiring Leaders, the 2022 Leadership Study Tour took nine students (both 2L and 3L Leadership Fellows and Clark Scholars), two deans (Dean Gordon Smith and Dean Mike Middleton) and one director (Director Erin Fale) to New York. Originally planned for 2020 to celebrate the Centennial anniversary of the 19th amendment, the group traveled to Rochester, Seneca Falls and Auburn to study women’s suffrage where the movement began. The group quickly learned the complex and fascinating integration of the women’s suffrage movement with abolitionist movement, immigration, and indigenous rights during a tender and formative time in American history.
Highlights included:
- Touring the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls where the Declaration of Sentiments was first read. Also visiting the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls in its new historic location at the Seneca Knitting Mill.
- Visiting the homes of Harriet Tubman and William Henry Seward in Auburn, both of which were stops in the Underground Railroad.
- Visiting the Palmyra Temple, the Smith Family Farm, Sacred Grove, Hill Cumorah, and the Grandin Press in Palmyra and the Whitmer Family Farm in Fayette.
- Meeting with Professor Susan Goodier (SUNY Oneonta) who discussed the complex networks of African American activism and the fruit of those efforts that changed our country’s history, landscape, and future.
- Visiting alums in Manhattan: Elise Faust (‘18) at Skadden, Karl W. Kowallis (‘19) and Mitch Hadley (‘14) at Knobbe Martens and Adam G. Lang (‘06) of Durrett Lang Morse.
- Touring Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, with the trip ending with Hamilton on Broadway.
