Leadership Lab

Leadership Lab: Journalism, Ethics, & Leadership in the Modern Age 

March 17, 2026, 5:10 pm, Stackhouse Theater 

Join us for a timely and wide-ranging conversation with Jeffrey Goldberg, one of the most influential voices in American journalism today. Mr. Goldberg will be in conversation with Eric Deggans, NPR critic at large and W&L Knight Professor of Journalism and Media Ethics. 

Jeffrey Goldberg is the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic and is the moderator of Washington Week With The Atlantic on PBS. He joined The Atlantic in 2007 as a national correspondent and in 2016 was named editor-in-chief, the 15th person to serve as editor in The Atlantic’s 168-year history. During his editorship, The Atlantic has set new audience and subscription records and won its first-ever Pulitzer Prizes. In 2022, 2023, and 2024, The Atlantic received the National Magazine Award for General Excellence from the American Society of Magazine Editors, the top award in the industry.

Before joining The Atlantic, Goldberg served as the Middle East correspondent and then the Washington correspondent for The New Yorker. Earlier in his career, he was a writer for The New York Times Magazine. He began his career as a police reporter for The Washington Post. Goldberg is the author of Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror and On Heroism: McCain, Milley, Mattis, and the Cowardice of Donald Trump. A former fellow of the American Academy in Berlin, he also served as a public-policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and as the distinguished visiting fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Goldberg is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Magazine Award for Reporting; the Daniel Pearl Award for Reporting; the Overseas Press Club’s award for human-rights reporting; the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Prize for best investigative reporting. 

This event is a collaboration between the Knight Foundation Ethics Institute and the Roger Mudd Center for Ethics.

Leadership Lab: Power and Accountability in Today’s Political Landscape

Thursday, November 13, 2025, 5:10 pm, Stackhouse Theater

Judge Mike Luttig ’76, P’14 and Mr. Lewis Powell III, Esq. ’74, P’18, P’20 will explore the complex relationship between political power, legal institutions, and accountability within the U.S. system of governance. Join us for a thoughtful and engaging conversation on the ethics of leadership in contemporary politics — and how we, as citizens and future leaders, can help strengthen accountability in public life.

This discussion will be guided by student questions received in advance. View the questions and recommended reading list. 

Michael Luttig served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 to 2006, appointed by President George H.W. Bush. Before joining the bench, he held several prominent legal roles, including Assistant Counsel to President Ronald Reagan (1981–1982), law clerk to then-Judge Antonin Scalia on the D.C. Circuit (1982–1983), and law clerk and Special Assistant to Chief Justice Warren E. Burger (1983–1985). At the U.S. Department of Justice, he served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel (1989–1990) and as Assistant Attorney General and Counselor to the Attorney General (1990–1991). After leaving the judiciary, Luttig was Boeing’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel (2006–2020) and later its Counselor and Senior Advisor to the CEO and board. From 2021 to 2025, he served as Counselor and Special Advisor to the Coca-Cola Company and its board. Over the last few years Luttig has authored numerous articles and provided interviews to major news outlets about the recent challenges to our democracy and the rule of law.  

Lewis Powell is a trial lawyer. In 2018, the National Law Journal recognized him as a “Master of The Courtroom”. His litigation practice has spanned intellectual property, commercial, fraud, antitrust, nuclear regulatory, environmental, toxic tort matters, and telecommunications issues. He has tried and appealed cases in state and federal courts and before regulatory agencies in more than 15 states and the District of Columbia. Most recently, he served as lead counsel in two related federal jury trials: in the first, a high-stakes antitrust and breach of contract case, the jury found entirely for his client and awarded substantial damages; in the second, a different jury rejected nearly all of the adversary’s 67 trade-secret claims. He regularly lectures on federal trial practice.

Both Luttig and Powell attended college at Washington and Lee University and law school at the University of Virginia. From 2023 – August 2025, Luttig co-chaired the American Bar Association’s bipartisan Task Force for American Democracy. Powell was one of its 30 members. 

Luttig has two grown children, one of whom attended W&L. Of Powell’s three grown children, two are Generals; one of them recently married a fellow ‘18 classmate.

Both Luttig and Powell spend as much time in Colorado as their schedules allow.

Leadership Lab: Reflections on Ethical Leadership in Contemporary Times

Wednesday, May 7, 2025, 11:30 am – 1:00 pm
Leyburn Library 128

Drawing from the practice and study of leadership across democracies, Kenneth P. Ruscio, President Emeritus of Washington and Lee University, will reflect on ethical leadership during our current challenging times. In this inaugural lecture of the Mudd Leadership Lab, Ruscio suggests that two qualities—humility and trust—serve to distinguish leadership from the mere use of power. His talk on May 7, 2025, will examine how these foundational aspects of ethical leadership are informed and sustained by notions of the collective good. Indeed, these topics have been a central focus of Ruscio’s writing and teaching over the last few decades. We are fortunate to have him explore with us these defining principles of ethical leadership.

Ruscio served as President of Washington and Lee University from 2006-2016. Prior to that he held faculty and administrative positions at W&L and was Dean of the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond from 2002-2006. His writing and teaching have focused on democratic theory, political leadership, trust, and public policy. He is the author of the 2004 book The Leadership Dilemma in Modern Democracy. He currently serves on the Boards of Skidmore College in New York, The Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, and the Collegiate School in Richmond.