Seventeen young professionals have joined the Anti-Defamation League Mountain States Region’s 2016-2017 Robert B. Sturm Leadership Fellows Program.  The program year began with a half-day retreat at the Genesee Challenge Course in Golden on September 11 at which the new Fellows had an opportunity to try out partner and group team-building activities on the low and high ropes courses with trained leaders from the Denver Parks and Recreation staff.

 

This year’s Sturm Fellows class includes the following individuals, who were chosen through a competitive application process: Charles Allison-Godfrey, Jordan Alvillar, Austin Cohen, Aaron Cooper, Melyssa Feiler, Sarah Fenn, Shane Kleinstein, Gabrielle Mattisson, Max Mattisson, Joshua Mitchell, Erin Nave, Heather Olsen, Jessica Pivar, Rachel Rosenthal, Molly Sandler, William Weiner and Joshua Weiss.

 

One of this year’s Fellows, Aaron Cooper, is an attorney with a small Denver firm that specializes in representing car crash victims.  When asked why he wanted to be a Sturm Fellow, Aaron replied:

I was raised in a Jewish home by ex-hippy feminists who taught me that all people deserve equal treatment. Equality was never about getting special treatment for Jews or women or minorities, it was about making sure that people of different backgrounds were on the same playing field as those in the majority. As I grew older and my understanding of equality as a general principle was connected to my legal studies, I began to see the civil rights injustices that occur on a daily basis, locally, nationally and worldwide. ADL’s legislative work and community involvement seeks to address those issues and I want to be an active participant in making our community better.

Although significant progress in civil rights advocacy continues, ADL is needed now more than ever. Battles over religious liberties, “religious liberties”, LGBTQ rights, and racial and ethnic profiling dominate the news. Current national candidates promote racism, xenophobia, and bigotry at the highest levels. I want to help secure rights for those who cannot always advocate for themselves and the Sturm Mountain States Leadership Fellows Program would be a great way to start.

 

The chairs of this year’s Sturm Fellows Program are Lauren Carboni, Karen Flaxer and Andrew Rubin, all graduates of the Program and members of the ADL Mountain States Board.

 

The Robert B. Sturm Leadership Fellows Program, part of the national ADL Glass Leadership Institute and formerly known locally as the “Partners Program,” runs each year from September-June and provides educational and social programming about the substantive issues of ADL’s work, giving participants the tools to become passionate civil rights leaders in the community. A highlight of the Program is the opportunity to attend ADL’s National Leadership Conference in Washington, DC, joining participants from all over the country to learn from nationally renowned speakers and leaders. The Sturm Fellows Program is supported locally by a generous endowment from philanthropist Robert B. Sturm.