David L., Sr. and Helen J. Temple Visiting Lecture Series

Before becoming a Trustee, Riley K. Temple served as an alumni associate on the Board’s committees on Buildings and Grounds and Athletics and Student Affairs. Temple served as a Trustee from 1994 to 2008 and during such time was Secretary (2006-2007) and Vice-Chair (2007-2008) of the Board.  He was the first African-American to be elected as an officer of the College, and the first openly gay man to do so. Temple endowed the David L., Sr. and Helen J. Temple Visiting Lecture Series Fund, which brings renowned artists for campus residencies, and the David L., Sr. and Helen J. Temple Study Abroad Fund, which provides stipends for students taking faculty-led courses abroad during interim session. The Riley Temple ’71 Creative/Artistic Citizenship Award is presented annually to a student whose creative scholarship in the visual and/or performance arts contributes to knowledge on societal issues of multicultural concern.

Temple has shared experiences and insights with students as an alumni admissions representative, career planning mentor, and campus speaker. He was instrumental in the development of the McDonogh Report, which celebrates the contributions of African Americans to the Lafayette community. The Association of Black Collegians honored him with its David K. McDonogh Award in 2001.

An American civilization major at Lafayette, Temple earned his law degree at Georgetown University. He recently founded Temple Strategies, a telecommunications consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, he was a partner in the telecommunications law firm of Halprin Temple, which he founded in 1993, representing clients before Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, and Executive Branch agencies.

He is a former member of the federal advisory committee to the FCC on Diversity for Communications in the Digital Age and chaired its Subcommittee on New Technologies. The president of the board of trustees of True Colors Theatre Company, Atlanta, Ga., Temple is past president of Arena Stage, Washington, D.C., and an honorary member of its board. He also is a member of the Community and Friends Board of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the board of the Foundation for the National Archives, and the board of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.

Temple was twice honored by the Whitman Walker Clinic for service as its board president and is the recipient of the Joseph Papp Racial Harmony Award from the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, Washington Life Magazine Substance & Style Award, Individual Arts Patron Founders Award from the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington, and Mildred Claypoole Memorial Award for Community Service from the United Planning Organization.

Recently Temple has been elected as Senior Warden of the Vestry of St. John’s Church Lafayette Square.  Moreover, he is a Trustee of the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Finally, in May 2014 he earned the degree of Master in Theological Studies cum laude, from the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, VA.