By Niki Marin, Class of 2025
What stays with me as a Presidential Leadership Scholar is the understanding that learning never stops. Leadership requires the discipline to keep listening, questioning, and growing, even when it feels easier to stand still.
While the classroom lessons shaped by the legacies of four presidents were powerful, some of the most transformative moments happened outside those walls. Sitting shoulder to shoulder on long bus rides, walking through memorials, or pausing on the grounds of a presidential library opened space for unplanned, honest conversations where connection deepened and learning took root.
One of the greatest gifts of PLS is its culture of shared growth. Each Scholar brought a background informed by their community, career, and calling. Trust developed among people with different worldviews as they took the time to listen to one another and felt encouraged to share personal stories. Leadership lives in the ongoing process of learning with others and in taking responsibility for how that learning influences what you do.
The sense of connection and growth built throughout the program can be difficult to put into words. Sometimes images communicate what language cannot, offering a glimpse into the emotions and relationships defining the experience. By curating a collection of these moments, the video I created brings it to life, showing how Scholars continue to evolve and choose connection instead of division.
As PLS celebrates its tenth year, I see its impact not only in its curriculum or the history it teaches, but in the community it has built. It’s a living network bringing together people who might never have crossed paths and sends them back into the world more prepared to lead with intention and a stronger sense of responsibility.
I’m grateful for what this journey has made possible in my life. And I look forward to the next decade of Scholars, those who will walk the halls of history, sit beside someone with a different story, and discover leadership is learned, always in motion, and rooted in connection.
To the moments of learning still to come.