Leadershape: 61 Undergrads Learn to Lead

Chris Colombo, Dean of Student Life

I just learned something really important about MIT students, and I had to leave the campus to find it out. Actually, it wasn’t so much that I left Cambridge—I was at a Salvation Army conference center in Sharon, Massachusetts—as it was that I turned off my Blackberry, gathered together with students, administrators, faculty, and alumni, and I listened. For six days.

Leadershape students begin a yearlong experience.

I was at a program called LeaderShape with 61 undergraduates. The goal of the program is for students to develop leadership skills and competencies. We want them to focus on the task at hand, so the Division of Student Life covers all their expenses, including transportation, food, and rooms. And the students are joined each year a dozen staff and faculty; this year the group included Institute Vice President Kirk Kolenbrander; Tracy Purinton of the MIT Leadership Center; and Alan Siegel, the chief of Mental Health Services from MIT Medical.

It may sound a little retreat-ish, if you know what I mean, but this was different than I expected—and much more intense.

We broke into five clusters, each led by two facilitators. Then, each group was asked to develop a community, creating visions for the future, constructing a blueprint for each of the student’s visions, understanding ideas like the value of one and the power of all and leading with integrity. The official schedule called for 15-hour days, starting at 7:30 a.m. with formal exercises until 10 p.m., but in true MIT fashion many of the students continued the conversation until the early morning.

I was amazed at how hard the students worked, their creativity and their passion. We know this about MIT students, but I was also astonished to hear them open up, to see how much pressure they put on themselves to succeed, and to take in how important it is for them to make a difference. It was powerfully moving—and I realized how much it matters that they feel connected to each other, to alumni, and to those of us who help shape their time at MIT.

Over six days and hours and hours of talking and listening and sharing, we bonded. When I got back to campus, I was exhausted—not by the time, but by the depth of the experience. Someone has created a listserve and email messages have been going back and forth. And I can’t step into the Infinite Corridor now without hearing a student call my name to say hello.

I’ll go again. It will be just as intense and just as exhausting and just as important that I learn these things all over again.