Rockefeller Leadership Fellow: Grace Benjamin '16

This series introduces the 2015-2016 Rockefeller Leadership Fellows. Each fellow reflects on why he or she wanted to be a part of the program and what aspects of leadership most interests them.
 

Through the Rockefeller Leadership Fellows Program, I hope to acquire and hone skills that will enable me to be a more effective leader in various communities. This program presents a unique opportunity to learn in a setting separate from academics, extracurricular activities, or professional experience, but learn material that is relevant to and can be applied to each.

My experience with SEAD (Summer Enrichment at Dartmouth) has provided a hands-on opportunity as a leader. I worked directly with a mentee on his classwork and felt that much of my work was leading by example. I learned to adjust my leadership style by taking cues from him and by learning over time what he received well. I learned that, in order to work well with others, it takes time to learn their personality traits, strengths and weaknesses.

I am very much a collaborator, and highly value conversations with peers as a way to learn about myself. I am particularly interested in learning about specifics in areas such as organizational strategy, delegating responsibility and fostering a productive and effective environment. Each of these applies to both campus organizations and any work space. I have always been intrigued by the way each person works within a larger team, and would enjoy learning more of the theory behind such a discourse. Through RLF, I hope to gain experience that will allow me to implement effective collaboration in every organization and group that I am a part of.

Grace Benjamin ’16 grew up in Bronxville, New York and graduated high school at St. Andrew’s School, a boarding school in Middletown, Delaware. At Dartmouth, she is an Art History major and Religion minor. She is a member of the Dartmouth Ski Patrol, a tour guide for the Admissions Office, and a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, where she holds the position of recording secretary on the executive board. She enjoyed working as an academic coach for the SEAD program sophomore summer, and working at volunteering at one of the SEAD schools over winter interim. After traveling to Rome on the Art History FSP, Grace fell in love with art and plans to pursue a career in the art world. She spent an off-term interning at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and will explore the commercial side of the industry working at a gallery in New York this summer.