Rockefeller Center Senior Profile: Tyler Kuhn '14

Photo by Rodrigo Ramirez Photography

When I was conducting my college search five years ago, I actively sought a campus with a strong sense of community and camaraderie. I jokingly told my friends that I was searching for a place where everybody knew the alma mater. I found this proverbial El Dorado in Dartmouth College.

And nowhere is that sense of community better exemplified at Dartmouth than at The Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences, or Rocky as it's known in Hanover. I was initially drawn to Rocky because of its plethora of public policy and leader-oriented programming options. I met some of my closest friends at Dartmouth after riveting political discussion in the weekly policy discussion group, PoliTALK. Furthermore, Rocky's First-Year Forum introduced me to the ins and outs of Dartmouth College, an invaluable mentoring tool for a young and impressionable freshman.

The Rockefeller Center nurtured my leadership aptitude through my participation in the Management and Leadership Development Program (MLDP). From this program, I learned how to assess a leadership problem quickly, how to develop a viable leadership plan to address the predicament, and how to motivate others to work towards solving the collective issue. One especially memorable session taught me the value of public speaking in the workplace. I learned how to present myself in a confident, professional manner in front of an audience.

Like any good community, Rocky came to my assistance when I needed help. Through a generous grant from the Class of 1964 Named Internship, facilitated through The Rockefeller Center, I was able to finance a non-paid internship in the Office of Senator Rob Portman '78 in Washington, DC. Throughout this internship, I learned valuable lessons about the nature and inner-workings of our political system. I learned how leadership is exercised (or not exercised) on the biggest political stage in the world. This experience has inspired me to possibly peruse a political career of my own one day.

Now that I am senior and have begun the process of reflection and contemplation, I become ever more grateful for the opportunities Rocky has given me to grow as a leader and as a person.

Tyler Kuhn ’14 is a lifelong resident of Hudson, OH. In high school, he served as a congressional page in the House of Representatives and was a non-voting member of the Hudson Board of Education. At Dartmouth, Kuhn was a Government and History double major. He was a member of the Committee on Instruction, a representative to the Student Assembly, chancellor of the Knights of Columbus, and secretary of Dartmouth’s mock trial team. He also served as president of his fraternity, Sigma Nu. During his sophomore year, Kuhn, as a Class of 1964 named intern, was an intern in the Washington, DC Office of Senator Rob Portman ’78. After his sophomore summer, Kuhn studied at the London School of Economics as a participant of the Government Department’s Foreign Study Program. During his senior year, Kuhn wrote a Government honors thesis studying the effects of violent crime rate on gubernatorial pardons. After graduation, Kuhn plans to pursue a career as a criminal litigator and possibly a career in politics.