YALE CIVIC LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE
YALE CIVIC LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE
Register to hear from our hosts, keynotes, and more
Eric Liu
Founder of Citizen University
Former speechwriter and domestic policy advisor to President Clinton
Rashad Robinson:
Color of Change Executive Director
"The Root 100" Winner
Jonathan Holloway
Dean of Yale College
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Civic Leadership
Civic Leadership
WHAT IS CIVIC LEADERSHIP?
Civic leadership is leadership for the common good. It is about activating people and ideas — whether through politics and government, volunteer service, culture, or everyday community engagement — to solve shared problems, to bridge divides, and to remedy injustice. It is vital to any self-governing society. And it is learnable by practice.
WHY CIVIC LEADERSHIP?
Individual leadership is deteriorating in our society. Many look to large impersonal institutions for leadership. They believe that in order to change the world they must hold political office. Many who hold political office also believe that their mere position should give them the ability to change the world and often have not had much experience with personal leadership. This has led to political gridlock as institutions find themselves unable to work with each other, and this in turn has led to widespread cynicism of the government and the political process in general.
The Civic Leadership Initiative addresses this deterioration and helps prepare Yale College graduates to be leaders in whatever field they enter.
WHAT IS THE CIVIC LEADERSHIP INITIATIVE?
The Civic Leadership Initiative started off as a Yale College initiative to cultivate civic leadership capacities among a diverse cross-section of students. Since its inception by Eric Liu and Dean Holloway and its first conference in 2015, a group of interested students have taken the lead, coordinating the second conference with the Yale College and the Citizen University, and building other programs to continue the conversation.
Eric Liu '90
Former speech writer for President Bill Clinton
Founder of Citizen University
“We need to make civics sexy again, as sexy as it was during the American Revolution or the Civil Rights Movement.”
Eric Liu '90
Former speech writer for President Bill Clinton
Founder of Citizen University
“We need to make civics sexy again, as sexy as it was during the American Revolution or the Civil Rights Movement.”
WHAT IS THE CIVIC LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE?
The Civic Leadership Initiative Conference is designed and run in partnership with Citizen University, a national nonprofit founded and led by Eric Liu ('90). Liu is an author on issues of citizenship and American identity, and former speechwriter and senior policy aide to President Bill Clinton. The conference will teach Yale undergraduates to learn and practice new forms of public leadership that this era requires - a shift from hierarchical commands to networked catalysts.
The Conference
How can Yale become more civic minded?
**Photo taken by Phillip Arndt**
The Conference
How can Yale become more civic minded?
**Photo taken by Phillip Arndt**
What will the Civic Leadership Conference Accomplish?
The conference focuses on three components of leadership: values, systems, and skills.
Values
The values component is about creating the building blocks of ethical awareness, self-knowledge, and what one could call "character in the collective" (norms like service, reciprocity, mutual responsibility, civility, and more).
Systems
The systems component will lay a foundation of basic knowledge of the systems of civic life that any leader needs to know how to navigate in order to create effective change.
Skills
The skills component unpacks some core skills of effective civic leadership: framing ideas, organizing people, negotiating, advocating, navigating conflict, activating diversity in teams and complex public situations.