Sharing the principle that ethical leadership education and development is a core function of American higher education, representatives from 25 of the inaugural recipients of the Carnegie Foundation Elective Classification for Leadership for Public Purpose recently convened on CMC’s campus at the 30th Kravis-de Roulet Leadership Conference.
The two-day conference was co-hosted by CMC’s Kravis Leadership Institute and Rice University’s Doerr Institute for New Leaders as an opportunity “to engage in meaningful discussions and share insights related to effective leadership for public purpose, teaching this discipline, and examples of leadership for public purpose initiatives.”
The pioneering cohort was announced in June 2024—and included CMC as a founding institution—after a rigorous four-year effort led by Professor David Day, Academic Director at the Kravis Leadership Institute. Convening the inaugural honorees at the College on March 7-8 was an extension of that campus-wide commitment to responsible leadership.
“The elective classification for Leadership for Public Purpose recognizes a campus commitment to self-study and continuous improvement. It is not a ‘one-and-done’ initiative,” said Day, who co-chaired the conference with Bernie Banks, Director of Rice University’s Doerr Institute for New Leaders with the intention to “explore, share, and connect—and especially to connect in building community.
“Something that President Hiram Chodosh said from the beginning is that if CMC is going to be involved with the elective classification, then it should be as an institutional leader … a great opportunity to demonstrate our campus-wide commitments to leadership for public purpose,” Day continued. “Bringing people together under the umbrella of leadership for public purpose is an act of responsible leadership.”
In addition, Day saw the conference as an opportunity to “build momentum for the elective classification and recruit other institutions interested in applying. There are over 800 higher education institutions that mention leaders or leadership in their mission statements. We want to reach as many as possible to help them engage with the elective classification to show what they are each doing when it comes to developing leaders and leadership at their institutions.”
In the closing keynote remarks, “Leading One, Out of Many,” President Hiram Chodosh inspired the audience, praising “the fiery commitments for those in this room who are dedicated to build virtues, values, capabilities, and skills. In our students, in ourselves. To lead through these many challenges. To lead, whether in positions of authority or especially without. To lead ourselves to the bottom up as a better way of leading top down.
“And here, to lead others across coordinate ideals and networks around flat, round tables in increasingly collaborative ways. To lead our own institutions, yes as our primary responsibility, but also to build something way beyond the four corners of our institutions.”
Chodosh then challenged those in the room to come together to “elevate our many projects on leadership for a public purpose, each vital to our own institutions … without putting prescriptions on what any one of us has the power to do on our own.
“How can we generate leadership for a public purpose as a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts—a collection of theory, practice, knowledge, evaluation, impact; and the resources, financial, human, and reputational to pull it all off?”
(Find additional conference highlights here.)
For Day, one of the most gratifying highlights was “the feedback we received from the conference participants,” who noted that, “the return of investment” on their time “was well worth it.”
He also said the conference provided “an opportunity to showcase the Ath, our phenomenal students, and the beautiful CMC campus. It raised collective awareness of what we do and are planning to do to deepen the CMC approach to leadership for public purpose.”
The Kravis-de Roulet Leadership Conference, which began in 1990, is funded jointly by an endowment from the Henry R. Kravis and Vincent de Roulet families. Kravis-de Roulet regularly brings together hundreds of leadership researchers and professionals from all over the world.