Mission Statement

The Hart Leadership Program challenges students to practice the art of leadership in public life.

Exercising leadership requires getting people—whether in small groups, large organizations or complex social systems—to focus their attention productively on difficult work.

HLP students discover that leadership and formal authority are not the same thing; leadership is not handed over with a promotion or a title. It is a demanding art that requires attention, courage and experimentation. It involves more than a tool kit of skills. Leadership requires knowing one's strengths and weaknesses, understanding complexity, asking the tough questions, and helping people deal with differences.

The Hart Leadership Program provides Duke undergraduates with a unique opportunity to practice this art. Courses give students analytical frameworks for grappling with the problems facing our global community. Immersion experiences outside the classroom help them see how policy works in the real world. Writing and discussion opportunities challenge them to reflect critically on their experiences and make sense of them. One-on-one mentoring helps students develop the skills, confidence and motivation to translate their learning into action.

HLP students benefit from the kind of passionate teaching and boundary-crossing learning more often associated with liberal arts colleges than research universities. At the same time, they have access to the immense resources and scholarly expertise of Duke University and the opportunity to learn first-hand from community partners locally, nationally, and around the world.

With guidance from our innovative faculty, students identify their own passions, competencies and vision for practicing the art of leadership in public life. They leave the program with a deeper understanding of the difficulties facing our world and a stronger commitment to making a difference.

The Hart Leadership Program at a glance

• The Hart Leadership Program was founded in 1986 with a generous gift from the Milledge A. Hart III Family Endowment.

• Since the program’s inception in 1986, nearly 7,500 students have taken a leadership course or participated in one of our experiential learning programs.

• We offer three experiential learning programs: Enterprising Leadership Incubator, Service Opportunities in Leadership and Hart Fellows.

• Since 1995, interns and fellows have conducted community-based projects with partner organizations in 13 U.S. cities and 35 countries. Through our courses and experiential learning programs, we have worked with more than 200 community partners, including 45 international organizations.

• In 2006-2007, we offered 18 leadership seminar courses on topics such as civic participation, political engagement, social entrepreneurship, ethics and public life, and organizational change and development.

• We are pioneers in the use of Research Service Learning (RSL) to help students develop leadership skills. Students work with community partners to design field-based research projects that serve community needs and interests. As they conduct their research they also engage in a rigorous process of critical reflection, which helps them discern the ethical issues and leadership dilemmas inherent in their work. In 2002, the Hart Leadership Program and the Kenan Institute for Ethics co-founded a campus-wide RSL project called "Scholarship with a Civic Mission," funded in part through a U.S. Department of Education FIPSE grant. Upon conclusion of the three-year project this year, Dean of Trinity College and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Studies Robert Thompson has agreed to sponsor Scholarship with a Civic Mission as an Arts and Sciences program. It will be housed in the Office of Undergraduate Research.

• We are currently featured in a new book, Leadership Can Be Taught: A Bold Approach for a Complex World, published by Harvard University Business Press. Author Sharon Daloz Parks examines the innovative pedagogy of Harvard leadership virtuoso Ronald Heifetz and his colleagues, including HLP director Alma Blount. Learn more.

• We are participating in the Political Engagement Project, a high-profile, national study of leadership education that addresses the serious problem of political disengagement in young people and advocates a dramatic increase in college and university efforts to strengthen student interest in politics. The project documents the goals and pedagogies of 21 participating courses and programs, student perspectives on their experiences in them, and the impact of these experiences on key dimensions of political development such as knowledge and understanding, active involvement, sense of political efficacy and identity, and skills of democratic participation. PEP is currently preparing a handbook, now in draft form, for faculty and administrators wishing to promote undergraduate political engagement.

• We are participating in a five-year study, the Forum on Excellence in Higher Education. The study is being coordinated by Professor Richard Light of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and Graduate School of Education. Duke will join 14 other colleges and universities, including Harvard, MIT, Georgetown, Middlebury and Wellesley. The themes of the Duke study are developing a strong culture for undergraduate research, and creating an excellent environment for civic and political participation.

• In May 2002, the Chronicle of Higher Education named the Hart Leadership Program one of the best-known leadership programs in the country.