COLE Leadership Fellows

Established in 2003, the COLE Leadership Fellows program engages a select group of Fuqua Second Year Daytime MBA students as stewards of the Fuqua leadership culture, committed to the development of fellow students and future Duke MBA graduates who exemplify the highest qualities of competence and character, who are global leaders characterized by self-awareness, ethical and moral sensitivity, integrity and personal courage.

Each year, 40+ Second Year MBA fellows, are selected through a competitive, rigorous and well-documented vetting process, involving both an application and interview. They receive training and apply their leadership skills in serving as peer facilitators, leadership coaches and mentors to all incoming First Year students and their teams. They play a key role in building and representing the leader of consequence culture at Fuqua.

Why are leadership initiatives undertaken by COLE important to the Fuqua community?

COLE Leadership Fellows (CLF) prepare Fuqua students for successful leadership by:

• Inspiring First-Year students to engage in a transformational graduate experience through creating, owning and being accountable for an intentional personal development journey as leaders of consequence.
• Equipping First-Year teams to develop collaborative leadership knowledge, skills, and abilities, and maximizing their capacity to effectively follow and lead in a team context.
• Facilitating six development sessions (in CLEAD Teams) designed to enable First-Year students to take ownership of their leader development experience at Fuqua. Topics include Leading in the context of teams, Unleashing the power of resilience, Giving and getting support through First Year challenges.
• Collaborating with other student organizations and leadership partners to strengthen a leadership-centered culture and curriculum at Fuqua.
• Modeling the values, principles and beliefs of a leader of competence, character, courage and consequence guided by a firm ethical/moral compass.

In addition to the programming the COLE Fellowship currently leads there are former COLE Fellowship initiatives that now are school-wide and maintained by the student government (Fuqua MBA Association), including Duke BOLD and the Leadership Engagement and Discussion Series (LEADS)

How do I get involved? What is the application process like?

Eligibility: All matriculating first year MBA students can apply to the Fellowship in an effort to become a Fellow during their second academic year

When: Applications are available only once a year and open to all first year students in the Daytime MBA program. The application timeline and details will be posted on COLE’s FuquaConnect homepage starting in Fall 2.

2023-2024 COLE Leadership Fellows