A Promise Well Kept: How One Alumna’s Steadfast Drive Helped Her Achieve Her Dream

Twelve years ago, LaToya Stroman, KLN ’12, found herself face to face with a Temple University admissions officer, making a promise that would guide the rest of her life.

"Itold her, ‘If you accept me into Temple, I will be one of the best students you have ever seen come through your doors. I will take advantage of every opportunity, and I will make this school very proud,’” she said. “I promise you that.”

As it turns out, it was a promise well kept. With production credits at some of entertainment’s top networks—including HBO Max, Hulu, ABC, Twentieth Century Fox, Bravo and OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network—today, LaToya, who’s based in Los Angeles, serves as co-executive producer for Hulu and founder of the women’s empowerment group Girl Talk Global. She even stepped in front of the camera in 2020 as executive producer and host of the Instagram Live series, A Seat at the Table with LaToya.

For LaToya, who entered Temple as a transfer student from Community College of Philadelphia to pursue a career in broadcast journalism, the opportunities at the Klein College of Media and Communication were not lost on her. She felt fortunate to learn from professors who knew the industry, like TV veterans Donna Benner, Paul Gluck and Amy Caples. She still counts all of them as mentors today.

Later that year, LaToya encountered an opportunity she couldn’t ignore. It was one full of possibility and potential, but even the thought of it pushed her out of her comfort zone. “I saw a table with a sign that said, ‘study abroad in London,’ and I thought, there will never be an opportunity for me to study away—I don’t have the money for something like this,” she recalled. “But a woman named Kellie Meyer sitting there was smiling and waving, and it was enough for me to get the courage to walk over there. If that hadn’t happened, my story might have been very different.”

LaToya continued her studies in London, even securing an internship at Shorts TV, an experience that eventually led to a job offer, an impressive feat as a junior in college. Fresh off her international studies, LaToya returned to Temple for her senior year. She then had another life-changing opportunity, this time studying away in Los Angeles. She saw how to pursue her dreams at the epicenter of the industry, ultimately deciding to follow her passion and grow her professional network Stateside. But it was the experiences she said yes to that set her up for success in the long run.

“When I went to Temple LA, I interned for two female executive producers and I thought, ‘Wow, they’re producing, they’re pitching, they have their own agents—they’re bosses!” she said. “So, I showed up every day to my internships like I was a producer. I always looked the part, and in the end, I was the only intern offered a job.”

On top of her thriving professional career, LaToya remains a passionate proponent of the place it all started, including her role as president of the Temple LA Alumni Chapter. She leads engagement efforts for the more than 4,500 Los Angeles-based Owls, an opportunity to stay connected to fellow graduates and current students. In fact, LaToya is a fixture among the Temple Los Angeles program, regularly serving as a guest speaker and proudly sharing her incredible story with each incoming class of new students.

Now, a decade after LaToya left Broad Street a Temple graduate, her ties remain as strong as ever as she continues to mentor future trailblazers to channel the same mindset that has served her so well. LaToya thanks her mom, Melanie, and sisters Nikki Star and Lauren, for their support and gives all honor to God for opening the doors.

“I’m so proud that I went to Temple and that they believed in me and that things have worked out for me,” she said. “I always say, if you find yourself in the right room, if you take the right chances and make the right choices, you’ll be headed in the right direction. It’s not how you start, but how you finish and finish what you start.”