Leadership Opportunities
A crucial part of our leadership development program involves putting principles into practice. Opportunities include:
Johnson Team Leadership Experience
It All Begins Here
In your first week, and continuing through your first semester, you will participate in the Johnson Team Leadership Experience, a required course for all incoming students. You will be assigned to a Core Team of five people, with whom you’ll collaborate to complete your Core Curriculum group assignments.
At Johnson, every student is required to lead a major Core Team project and every student is required to provide feedback to other team members on their leadership of major Core Team assignments. You and your team will receive coaching throughout the Fall Core from your
Johnson Leadership Fellow. This will include review of, and coaching on, the feedback that you provide to your team members, as well as the feedback that you receive on your leadership.
Through this experiential cycle of learning, practice, feedback, and reflection, you will hone your team and personal leadership styles and learn how best to leverage your unique personal strengths.
Johnson Outdoor Experience
Orientation Retreat
The Johnson Outdoor Experience (J.O.E.) is an orientation retreat in the beautiful Finger Lakes region, held each year for new first-year students in the residential two-year MBA program. The retreat is a chance for your class to come together as a community, and features hands-on leadership training. This includes team-building challenges that you and your Core Team members will take turns leading.
Real, Hands-On Learning
We offer supplemental half-day and whole-day workshops throughout the academic year to enhance and accelerate your leadership development. The sessions complement our leadership curriculum and offer you practical tools and hands-on, interactive training in core leadership competencies. Current students can sign up here.
Expeditions Away from Sage
Leadership Expeditions are a chance to leave Ithaca and dig in, full-time, to your leadership development. Expeditions are designed to give students the opportunity to go through the Johnson leadership learning cycle of
instruction, experience, and review multiple times in an intensive, condensed time frame. In January 2013, a group of Johnson students traveled to Patagonia, Chile, for a 10-day expedition where they tested and enhanced their leadership skills in an unpredictable, challenging, and dynamic wilderness environment.
Leading a Student Organization
Your Chance to Make a Difference
There are a remarkable range of leadership opportunities available to you on campus—you can lead one or more of 70+ Johnson student organizations, Cornell University activities, and external organizations. These positions give you the chance to explore different leadership styles and strategies and the opportunity to leave a lasting impact on the school.
Coach and Mentor First-Year Students
The
Johnson Leadership Fellows program is an experiential leadership opportunity for second-year MBA students in the full-time program. Leadership Fellows are nominated by the faculty and are selected based on academic and leadership performance. Each Leadership Fellow is assigned one or two Core Teams of first-year MBA students whom they coach, mentor, and advise throughout the fall core curriculum.
Johnson Board Fellowship
Intensive Nonprofit Leadership Experience
The Johnson Board Fellowship program places second-year Johnson MBA students on Ithaca-area nonprofit boards for one-year appointments. Johnson Board Fellows gain board leadership experience, serve the local community, and execute consulting projects for the organizations they serve. The program is entirely student-run, and Fellows are selected in the spring of their first year. The Johnson Board Fellowship has been featured in
US News and World Report and
Cornell Enterprise magazine. In December 2012, the group was honored with the prestigious
Town-Gown (TOGO) Award by Cornell University President David Skorton for its outstanding contributions to the relationship between Cornell and the broader Ithaca community.
Full-tuition Fellowships
The
Roy H. Park Leadership Fellows Program was established in 1997 and is funded by the Triad Foundation (Roy H. Park and the Triad Foundation). The Program was founded on a leadership theme that emphasizes the development of leadership skills and offers up to 25 Johnson students a two-year, full-tuition fellowship award (you must be a U.S. citizen to apply).
