Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership taps into key strengths as it readies for the next ten years

Since its founding 25 years ago, CPL has grown from a small fellows program into one of the Kennedy School’s core institutions with over 100 fellows annually, dozens of resident and affiliated faculty,  visiting practitioners, and a strong team of dedicated staff. There are now over 1,100 CPL alumni in key leadership positions throughout the world, serving in government, business, and nonprofits.

Now, CPL is prepared to propel its mission to further heights as it looks ahead to the next decade. 

Collaboration across leadership topics

Key to that plan, said Foxx, is the continued support and enrichment of CPL’s eight fellowship programs, which form one of the main building blocks for the center.

“Our new strategic plan is built for this moment. It is also built to endure beyond this moment,” said Foxx.

“CPL fellowships are where our students come to be grounded,” shared CPL Director of Programs Michelle Bloom-Lugo, “and to connect to thought leaders and others within their fellowship to help stay grounded and not lose sight of why they embarked upon this journey in the first place.”

This connection to thought leaders—whether that be with faculty, visiting practitioners, CPL alumni, or other students—is core to each CPL fellow’s experience.  In recent years, Bloom-Lugo and her team have increased the ways fellows can collaborate across the eight fellowships through fellowship programming.

Unlike other centers at the Kennedy School, CPL’s focus on public leadership cuts across a variety of subject matters. These programs allow students from across the Kennedy School to engage on multiple topics in cross-collaborative endeavors. Topics range everywhere from AI policy, nuclear strategy, healthcare, indigenous development, or philanthropy.

“We want to provide our students with field experiences that really add to their toolkit,” said Bloom-Lugo, “This really gives them a front row seat on each topic and lets them ask the hard questions.”

Creating real world impact

Another foundational building block of CPL’s strategic plan is supporting resident and affiliated faculty and integrating them deeper into the life of the center.

Foxx points to faculty-led programs that are great examples of how CPL faculty and fellows provide real-world impact.

“Cornell William Brooks’ Trotter Collaborative for Social Justice is one of the current examples,” shared Foxx. “He’s already taking students out into the world and making a huge impact on criminal justice reform. Julie Battilana and Brittany Butler are driving real world impacts through the Social Innovation + Change Initiative program. Marshall Ganz continues his tremendous work on the Practicing Democracy Project. I could go on and on. The question to be asked is how we can do more together as a Center faculty. We will discover that together.”

The field experience provided through these faculty programs allows fellows to put the education and scholarship of the center into practice.

Fellow engagements with visiting practitioners also bring each of their subject areas into focus.

“We focused on topics of the greatest interest to our students. And two things that emerged were crisis leadership and crisis communication,” shared Bloom-Lugo. “So, we brought in Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the former CDC director and CPL Hauser Leader, in the fall to talk about crisis leadership . . . and then Soledad O'Brien, a leading journalist and documentarian and Harvard alumna, to talk about crisis communication.”

Fellows are also able to interact with a unique portfolio of practitioners through the Hauser Leaders Program, which has included high-profile leaders such as Dr. Walensky, the Rt. Hon. Dame Jacinda Ardern, Ambassador Wendy Sherman, and—most recently—the former Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of Ireland, Leo Varadkar.

This year, CPL also helped fund and facilitate a student-generated event series open to the Kennedy School community, which featured visiting practitioners and Harvard faculty who explored relevant topics such as climate action, Indigenous rights, and the democratic narrative.

CPL faculty programs, student-led events, and fellowship programs are not only enriching CPL fellows but also providing students across the entire Kennedy School with opportunities to develop and hone leadership skills. As CPL looks to the future, these programs will continue to play a key part in fulfilling strategic goals.

Fostering a robust community

In the end, as fellows make these connections with faculty, visiting practitioners, and alumni, they grow their networks. By the time they graduate, they have a rich CPL community they can access and engage throughout their entire career.

“They have established a community that extends past their graduation. If anything, it is just getting started,” shared Bloom-Lugo, who also highlighted how CPL alumni are part of the selection process for future fellows.

The CPL alumni community remains engaged and ready to help one another, even as some CPL alumni face uncertainty. In addition to virtual alumni events, CPL recently hosted a series of well-attended alumni reception events throughout the country, including in Washington, D.C., Boston, and San Francisco.

“We will build on the great work that's been done in recent years to strengthen our connection to alums,” shared Foxx. “We must serve both as a resource to them and tap into alumni as a resource for current students. The larger objective is to make a routine practice of staying engaged with our current and incoming fellows and alumni long after they graduate. This has been an informal practice from the beginning. Now, we endeavor to build an infrastructure to do so in perpetuity.”

A foundation for the future

With a future filled with shifting political climates, new tools like AI, and other disruptions, CPL’s commitment to collaboration across subject matter, leadership development through field experience, and a robust alumni network, provides its graduates with the foundation they need to be effective public leaders.

“While tools change, public decision-making will always be human-centered and require people to form consensus to act,” said Foxx. “As long as that's true, we’ll need leaders, people who can rally others to an important cause and see it through.”

For CPL, dedication to that task will grow even more important in the years ahead. Foxx remains optimistic on the impact fellows will make in the world.

“Our students come to the Kennedy School and the Center for Public Leadership filled with great hope and ambition. They have infinite capacity to improve our world. Our mission is to help them through our collective work as a faculty and staff community. We intend to leave them inspired and prepared to take on the problems that demand urgent action, to lead lives of public service broadly defined.”

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John Buckley is the interim Assistant Director of Communications and Marketing at the Harvard Kennedy School's Center for Public Leadership. John is a marketing consultant and is also the founder of Politirate, a CivicTech startup dedicated to enhancing transparency and accountability in politics through community-driven insights and AI toolsets.