Quantifying Leadership

Like many long-standing institutions, Leadership School began as a small idea that blossomed into something much larger. In the early 1930s, as the Great Depression shook the nation, then-Eminent Supreme Recorder John O. Moseley — a Rhodes scholar, longtime educator and former president of the University of Nevada-Reno — realized the Fraternity needed an event where members from around the country could meet and share ideas. At the time, communication was slow and tedious, so chapters tended to sort into isolated clusters around the country. Sigma Alpha Epsilon was born with the idea of fraternalism and communication, but there was no venue for those connections to happen on a national level. To rectify the situation, Moseley decided to create a “School of Instruction,” one that would build both individual and group strength. With his famous words to the Supreme Council at the Levere Memorial Temple — “Brothers, we have here in this Temple a magnificent school house, why couldn’t have here a school?” — he began his quest. That first event, held in 1935, would have 116 attending brothers from 75 chapters, and Moseley was the sole planner and educator at that session. It was an auspicious beginning to what would continue, interrupted only once (during World War II) and would mark its 74th anniversary in 2009.

But at the most basic level, Moseley was just one man. In order to make his vision continue, he needed help. And he succeeded. Men from around the Realm have taken his place as a leadership director, including our current president. “I looked around at all the past Eminent Supreme Archons as a freshman and thought that there must be something to all this,” Wiglesworth says. “They had so much zeal and were so emotional about Leadership School. They’re just regular people, but they’re also leaders.”

Without the legacy that Moseley created, brothers like Wiglesworth would not have had the opportunity to meet and emulate those men who came before them. Through the years, the event grew and ebbed with the times, adapting to fit the needs of the students who attended. According to past Eminent Supreme Archon and former Director of Leadership School, Glen T. Nygreen, the key dimension to each Leadership School is a discovery of, well, leadership. Since Nygreen spoke those words in the mid-1950s, they’ve remained true. In 2009, Knapp attended his third School as an undergraduate. “Opportunities like Leadership School help you develop as a leader,” he said. “Anyone with a capacity to learn is able to become a great leader.”

Anyone with a capacity to learn — and who has a deep love for all things Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Ignacio Belmonte, who attended his first Leadership School, and the rest of the 35 men at the Gustavus Adolphus colony, represent that new generation of leadership. “We brought back the idea that we are a national fraternity to our campus,” he says. “Most of our guys have not experienced that. We’re on a campus with only local fraternities.” There’s a direct line, a passing-down, of tradition and learning to men like Belmonte and his colony.

Joe Laux, a 2003 graduate from Arizona State, had the opportunity to attend his third Leadership School as a faculty member and came away with a very similar sentiment. “By going, I learn a little more about myself and about my leadership skills,” he says. “Often, the teacher learns more than the student.”

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