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Alumni Panels Provide Advice to Current Students: Alumni working in government and law offer counsel

To celebrate the 125th anniversary of Rollins College, four Rollins alumni, who now work with the government, spoke on Nov. 4 in SunTrust Auditorium.

Sydney Burt Goodwin ’60 majored in theater arts at Rollins. She was the former event coordinator at the residence of the U.S. vice president and the executive director of the vice president’s Residence Foundation. Goodwin says she “learned how to volunteer at Rollins. If I found a door closed, I would just volunteer and get in that way.” Goodwin recommends that students take a speech course while at Rollins because “no one is going to remember how many A’s you get, but they will remember how you sell yourself.”

Hon. Rust Deming ’64 majored in politics at Rollins. He served as the former U.S. Ambassador to Tunisia and the former principal deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Deming sees his experience at Rollins as a huge help to his future. “When I came here, I was a very shy kid. Rollins forced me out of my shell.” He also stated that students need to always “be willing to learn” and to “take responsibility for the bad news.”

Renee Stone ’85 was an English major at Rollins. She was awarded a Truman Scholarship and a Rhodes Scholarship. She then received her master’s degree in history from Oxford University and a law degree from Stanford University. She is the current deputy chief of staff to the U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Stone attributes a lot of her success to never really having a plan. This allowed her “to take those opportunities as they came.”

Chauncey Goss II ’88 majored in area studies at Rollins and then went on to receive his master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University. He is currently an independent government and fiscal policy consultant. Rollins offered Goss a “buffet” of possibilities that prepared him for life. He also encouraged students to “have a passion for whatever you want to do.”

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