Leadership at MIT

Providing tools and opportunities to create 21st century leaders

Leaders are made, not born, and MIT plays an important role in molding leaders for the 21st century. Graduates leave the Institute with the ability and the drive to reach the top in science, politics, architecture, higher education, and business.

The entrepreneurial nature of MIT graduates—their ability to lead in vision and action—is renowned. MIT alumni have started thousands of companies—Hewlett-Packard, Progress Software, Thermo Electron, and many more on the way to making their own marks in industry. Of companies founded by MIT graduates, one in six are started within five years of the founders’ graduation. Over half are started within 15 yeas of when the founder was graduated.

As we look to the future, our leaders need to be technologically and scientifically knowledgeable. MIT’s strength is its ability to produce graduates with the educational background to make them better leaders and with the desire to excel. Our graduates manage teams, lead organizations through change, innovate, and become entrepreneurs. In so doing, they fulfill MIT’s mission of service to the nation and the world.

Students desire leadership skills

MIT students desire leadership skills, and in some cases, they are also teaching those skills. Jordan Fabyanske ’06, an applied mathematics major, is one example. He had been active in the Interfraternity Council in several leadership roles. When he became a vice president, he had little help in his transition to a position that required marketing, recruitment, and motivation skills.

Fabyanske kept a journal of lessons he learned in the process, and turned that journal into a curriculum. With help from the MIT Leadership Center and the Division of Student Life, the senior created a course to teach the skills needed for leadership transition in student organizations.

The course was taught during the Independent Activities Period, a four-week term when students pursue independent projects, and attend forums, lectures, and recitals. About 25 students took the course, coming from such organizations as the MIT Flying Club, the Graduate Student Council, and the Campus Crusade for Christ.

“Students today believe they can change the world, and we help them. We give them the tools,” said Kirk Kolenbrander, vice president for Institute affairs.

Lessons in leadership

Leadership opportunities permeate life at the Institute. A recent survey by the Division of Student Life and the MIT Leadership Center found more than 150 offerings geared toward producing better leaders on campus.

MIT LeaderShape, part of a national program, is one example. LeaderShape brings faculty and administrators together with students for six intensive days of work. As many as 70 students participate annually. At the Institute, some of the top administrative and faculty leaders have been facilitators, including a former president of MIT, two chancellors, vice presidents, deans, and senior faculty. The students and facilitators spend every day together and share meals, working with a curriculum that helps students define their visions and make positive changes in the student organizations they lead.

Among the changes on campus in which LeaderShape students have played a role are the development of the minor studies program, turning women’s ice hockey into a varsity sport, and creation of the Black Women’s Alliance.

Another example is BioMatrix, a student-run mentorship program that more than 170 undergraduate students and 70 graduate students have used to enhance their leadership skills and build relationships with industry professionals. BioMatrix was designed to connect students interested in biological and biomedical science and engineering with mentors, who help them explore career decisions. The students work together with faculty, clinicians, researchers, and other professionals on programming, membership, and communications.

Likewise, students have opportunities to lead as members of student governments at the Institute—the Undergraduate Association, Graduate Student Council, Association of Student Activities, Dormitory Council, Interfraternity Council, Panhellenic Council, and Living Group Council. In addition, students hone their leadership skills in varsity sports and the ROTC program.

MIT’s 36 fraternities, sororities, and independent living groups (FSILGs) also help groom leaders. The Division of Student Life sponsors chapter retreats, sends members to individual fraternity and sorority conferences and leadership academies, offers delegate retreats, and organizes an annual Greek convention that includes workshops on topics such as alumni relations, risk management, and gender issues.

In the 2004 MIT Senior Survey, 76.6 percent of the students said leadership ability was very important or essential to them and 69.3 percent of the students said they have experienced growth in that ability while at MIT. Students crave the chance to acquire new leadership skills ad improve the ones they already have.

MIT’s first-year students embark on that path the moment they arrive on campus. “Our mission is to teach you to make the world that will be, and to become the leaders of that new world,” President Susan Hockfield told the Class of 2009 at their Freshman Convocation.

The Institute has always created leaders, but now MIT is building on that tradition by actively promoting leadership skills, and the many ways to acquire and improve those skills, to better prepare Institute graduates.

“The work world into which they’re going is more complex. More is expected of them and opportunities are greater for them,” says Larry Benedict, dean for student life.

Supporting leadership

Leaders come from different facets of campus life—from student government, entrepreneur competitions, the Greek community, and many others. We will be better positioned to develop and strengthen our students’ innate talents if we bring together and expand existing leadership training opportunities from around campus, and create a systematic approach to leadership development.

Gifts in support of leadership programs at MIT will help create an institutional framework for producing strong leaders without extinguishing creativity.

Giving opportunities

Endow a Center for Leadership Development to coordinate all initiatives across
the Institute: $5 million

Endow a director of student leadership development position: $2.5 million

Endow and education fund for fraternities, sororities, and independent living groups (in support of undergraduate and chapter training, and leadership development): $2 million

Support annual workshops, student conferences, retreats, speakers, and programs: $100,000