The Brown Leadership Institute

Leadership Development for High School Students

The world faces complicated and often daunting challenges: global health, environmental destruction, conflicts and wars, poverty, mass immigration, global security, and human rights abuses. These challenges demand the attention of every member of the global community.

We believe that educated young people can make a positive difference in the world; thus our mission is to help students develop and apply the knowledge, skills and attitudes associated with effective and socially responsible leadership.

The Brown Leadership Challenge:

Understand Global Challenges

Students develop knowledge and understanding of complex issues through case studies, lectures, films, simulations, discussions, field research  and group projects. Your learning is stimulated by creative curricula, engaging faculty and peers from around the world. Last year we had students from 25 different countries and from around the U.S. Such diversity is key to our understanding of global challenges.

Develop Leadership Skills

In class, on the ropes course, and in evening workshops, students learn and practice leadership skills including public speaking, interpersonal communication, problem solving, conflict resolution, and teamwork.

Create an Action Plan

Students create an Action Plan focused on issues they care about. With the guidance of expert faculty and staff, students apply their strengths, passions, knowledge and skills to serve others and effect change in the world.

All Leadership Institute students are encouraged to create an Action Plan that addresses a social issue in their community. Students develop these plans while they are here in the summer and then work on the project when they return home. We invite all students to return in November for the Symposium on Social Change, which is a weekend program aimed at helping students with their projects. Review student plans in our new digital Action Plan library which contains some examples of the work our students have done in the past year.

Take Your Learning Home

All of us share a civic responsibility to both understand complex social issues and apply what we know in service to others. During your course, instructors and peers help you develop a plan that applies your new knowledge and leadership skills to a problem or issue in your community. Leadership alumni return to their communities as part of a network of social activists.

Return for Reflection and Support

Each year, Leadership Institute alumni are invited to return to campus for the Leadership Symposium on Social Action. This weekend program is an opportunity to share Action Plan experiences with each other, receive guidance and support from Institute faculty and staff, and find renewed focus and inspiration for their work.

Student Profile

The Leadership Institute is designed for highly motivated and intellectually curious students who are interested in complex social issues. We look for young people who are excited to learn and want to make a positive difference in the world. Applications are open to qualified high school students from 9th grade through graduated seniors

Note: The "Leadership for Social Change" course is open to students who have graduated from 10th, 11th or 12th grades, and have completed a Leadership Institute course, or otherwise demonstrate a deep commitment to social change through volunteer work or other forms of community engagement.

Courses

• Brown Environmental Leadership Laboratory (BELL)
• Leadership and Conflict Resolution
• Organize, Mobilize: Leadership for Social Change
• Leadership and Global Development
• Women and Leadership
• Changing Business: Becoming a Social Entrepreneur
• Leadership and Global Engagement
• Human Rights: History and Action
• Leadership and Global Health
• Documentary Film Production & Theory for Social Change
• Identity, Diversity and Leadership
• Leadership, Religion and Politics
• Leadership in Science, Technology and Society
• The Arts for Social Change

Explore Leadership Courses in our Catalog »