CCLP
Pairing alumni and
students to catalyze
leadership potential
Community Catalyst Leadership Program
Community Catalyst Leadership Program 2021 applications are closed!
If you have any addtional questions, please contact Jacklyn Liberman.
Established in 2007, the Community Catalyst Leadership Program (CCLP) asks participants to engage in a journey of personal leadership development and reflection. Each participant is paired with an MIT alumnus/a in a coaching relationship designed to meet each student's personal development goals. This program is open to students regardless of prior participation in leadership opportunities at MIT. There are four components of the program: one-on-one coaching, educational sessions, leadership planning, and personal reflection.
Students who partcipated in CCLP have said:
“My leadership goals this year were to be more inclusive of every person on my respective teams and making each of them feel important and respected for contributing to our goals. In general, I am very good at balancing big personalities and working to compromise with them to get on the same page as everyone else. However, I struggle to develop strong relationships with the quieter or more cooperative team members because my attention is on the strongest personality. Over the past two years, I have realized that MIT students work best together when they feel personally responsible for the group and that everything that they do for the team is important.”
"The Community Catalyst Program taught me the importance of giving feedback to those I work with, so I took it upon myself to make sure I listened to the needs of the MIT student mentors before suggesting ways in which they could improve and be more involved as mentors. I learned that servant leadership is often effective because people are more likely to do things if they themselves will benefit from doing so.” After a series of conversation with his coach plus CCLP workshops, one student shared, “I began to realize what an important concept leadership actually was. It is not just upper management decision making in a student club or asking others for feedback. It is a way of life: making decisions through your values, making your actions reflect your ideals, not taking shortcuts, connecting with people, and growing with the values of other people.”