Meet a Colleague: James Lambert

Meet a Colleague: James Lambert James Lambert serves as the director of Lifelong Learning Programs.

W&L News Office
September 17, 2025

Q. How long have you worked at W&L?
I started working at W&L this July.

Q. What do you like most about working at W&L?
It's hard to order what I like the most, but here are a few of my favorite things: the town, the tradition, the faculty and the deans. Pretty much everyone I have met, and I haven't even met the students yet. I am waiting for someone to disabuse me of the idea that everyone that works at W&L are great hangs.

Q. Where is your favorite location on the W&L campus?
I am not sure it is on campus, but just underneath the parking lot bridge on the Woods Creek Trail there is a little pool with a couple of snapping turtles. That is my favorite location. Other than that, my office.

Q. Where did you grow up?
Scottsdale, Arizona.

Q. What advice do you have for students?
Your bed is for sleeping only: when you wake up, get out of bed before you touch your phone or anything else and don't get back in bed until you are done for the day. For that matter, think of your room that way, get out of it in the morning and be with other students until you have to go back into it at night. It will make you healthy, wealthy, and fun.

Q. What is the most adventurous thing that you have ever done?
I moved to Kuwait with three kids under the age of eight.

Q. What's your favorite thing to do when you're not working?
Riding around town on my bike, or walking around town on my feet, or riding around the county on my bike. All are delightful.

Q. If you could live anywhere, where would you build your dream home?
Lexington is paradise, but I would leave if my wife chose to go. About locations to live, I often have Eve's words to Adam in "Paradise Lost" in my head about her and our home: Eve says to Adam when they are about to leave paradise, "with thee to go is to stay here; without thee here to stay is to go hence unwilling; thou to me art all things under Heav'n, all places thou." My dream location is wherever Kathryn is.

Q. Who most inspires you?
I am inspired by the quiet but impactful life of the novelist Marilynne Robinson.

Q. What book are you reading now?
I am reading "The Nickel Boys" in preparation for our Law and Literature Weekend. It is going to be momentous.

Q. What is your favorite film (movie) of all time?
I am a sucker for Terence Malik's "Tree of Life" but "Step Brothers" continues to climb the list.

Q. If they made a movie about your life, who would play you?
Jimmy Kimmel, although I don't think he is an actor, but people say I look like him, or the version of him that didn't get skinny and hot. If he can't act the part, I am getting Chalamet or Elordi.

Q. If you could have coffee with one person, who would it be and why?
Every time I see an interview with the actor Paul Rudd, it seems like the interviewer is having the time of his or her life. It looks fun, so my answer is Paul Rudd.

Q. Tell us something most people don't know about you.
In college, I danced on the Russian folk dance team. It was not my favorite college experience.

Q. Anything else you'd like to share?
I am a firm believer that America's variety of universities - large public, research, private, liberal arts, religious, you name it - composes the best that the United States has to offer humanity. If not learning, then what? That is why I love my job as director of lifelong learning: students are getting an incredible university service that lasts much longer than their four year residency. They get this beautiful university for life. Don't ever take universities for granted. Don't ever take Washington and Lee for granted. It is a beautiful thing. I feel privileged to be at any university in general, and especially this one at this moment.