M. Lauck Walton
M. Lauck Walton – Pi Chapter – RPI, 1984
Educator and Leader
Lauck attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute earning an undergraduate degree in Psychology and an MBA in Management. Lauck’s first professional position was as the Zeta Psi International Headquarters in White Plains and then Pearl River, NY, where he started as an office assistant and left as the Associate Executive Director three and a half years later.
Lauck moved to Alexandria, Virginia, and pursued a career working with for-profit colleges. First as a regulator with an accrediting commission, then as a regulatory staff member for a school group, and for the last 15 years as a College President for several small colleges. While the for-profit sector faced constant criticism, Lauck was able to create an environment for growth, improve student retention, employment rates after graduation, and achieving organizational goals by holding staff and students accountable to short- and longer-term objectives.
During this period as an Elder Volunteer with Zeta Psi, Lauck has conducted many leadership sessions at regional and convention LTI programs. He has served as the President of the Pi (RPI) Chapter, Phi Epsilon (Maryland) Chapter, and DC Elders Association. He was the chair of the 2001 Washington DC Convention and has worked on countless international committees and task forces. Lauck served as Phi Alpha (International President) CXXXIII and President of the Zeta Psi Educational Foundation and was privileged to present charters to chapters at St. Andrews (Scotland) and Trinity College Dublin (Rep of Ireland) during his term as Phi Alpha. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Award at the 2016 Chicago Convention.
Around that time, Lauck returned to the Zeta Psi IHQ as the Executive Director with a mandate to reduce insurance claims while maintaining the chapter roll. During this period, Zeta Psi passed important risk reduction, sexual misconduct prevention legislation and was successful at improving its chapter management and discipline although several chapters were closed for behavioral reasons. In 2018, Zeta Psi reaffirmed its principal of giving chapters the final authority to decide who met our membership criteria when the Executive Committee temporarily prevented a chapter from pledging a transgender member. During this period, charters were granted to the Gamma Psi (Guelph) chapter, the Psi Omicron (Paris) chapter, and Kappa Delta (George Mason) chapter. Lauck’s son, Morgan is a charter member of the Kappa Delta chapter.