Equity-Focused Leadership Development

Slide 1: Four CPRL staff and students posing for a photo standing shoulder to shoulder
Slide 2: Male student in class
Slide 3: Upclose image of students creating a lo-fi prototype in Skills
Slide 4: CPRL student leading a training
Slide 5: Whole group discussion in Seminar

Four CPRL staff and students posing for a photo standing shoulder to shoulder

Upclose image of students creating a lo-fi prototype in Skills

Our semester-long course combines a rigorous seminar, practical skills training, and an immersive experience on a client-facing project.

These experiences allow students to:

Study, plan, and advance improvement and innovation in collaboration with leaders and stakeholders

Learn alongside peers and demonstrate growth and success with addressing complex problems

Connect with employers nationwide and learn about exciting job opportunities

Join a network of clients, alumni, funders, and leaders committed to improvement

Why Join CPRL?

Armando Lizarraga, CPRL Fall 2020

Teachers College, Columbia University

“CPRL's mission in supporting and challenging our educational system to be more equitable is why I decided to join. I wanted to be a part of a collective that not only helped me advance my own education and training but also improve the experiences of other historically underrepresented students.”

Misbah Budhwani, CPRL Spring 2020

Columbia Business School

"I wanted to have a big impact by providing recommendations and advising educational organizations that would, in turn, affect change in schools and entire school districts. Having exposure to not just one classroom but also an entire educational organization was the experience that I was looking for and didn’t know how to find until I came to CPRL."

Elizabeth Orem, CPRL Fall 2019

Columbia Law School

"I decided to join CPRL because I was burnt out from my first year of law school and wanted to reconnect with the values and goals that brought me to law school in the first place—namely, my passion for social justice."

“I joined CPRL because I wanted to practice what I was learning in my education and social policy classes at NYU. I knew CPRL would offer great, hands-on experience with people who all come from a variety of backgrounds and, ultimately, wanted to improve students' lives, especially underrepresented students.”

-Aya Bukres, Fall 2020

What Is the CPRL Experience?

Seminar: Change in Public Education: CPRL's seminar offers a close study of governance systems, policies, and laws that accelerate and support educational equity—as well as those that hinder equity. Through our seminar, students construct a framework for understanding change in education and other public sectors.
Skills and Competency Training: Skills training proves an applied setting for students to develop and refine the competencies needed to tackle public sector problems. Targeted competencies include systems analysis, strategic planning, practical measurement, and stakeholder engagement, including interviewing.
Client-Facing, High-Impact Projects: Under the guidance of CPRL’s Project Directors, students work on interdisciplinary teams of 3-5 students to help clients advance urgent, high-impact efforts to improve public education. The project experience allows students to apply and grow the knowledge and skills needed to become leaders who pursue educational equity.

Seminar: Change in Public Education: Professor James Liebman, J.D., and CPRL Executive Director Liz Chu, Ph.D., teach our seminar, which also features prominent speakers.
Skills and Competency Training: CPRL Executive Director Liz Chu, Ph.D., teaches skills alongside a set of visiting experts.
Client-Facing, High-Impact Projects: Project Directors lead CPRL projects with support from other staff. Visit Our Staff page to meet the directors.

Seminar: Change in Public Education: Read the Seminar syllabus to learn about course goals, readings, and assignments
Skills and Competency Training: Read the Skills syllabus to learn about the class experience.
Client-Facing, High-Impact Projects: Visit our Publications and Tools page to see a sampling of project deliverables.

Read the course description to learn how CPRL's components—seminar, skills, and project-based teams—fit together to support leadership training.

What Do Our Students Say About CPRL?

“CPRL provided a unique practical experience that provided hands-on project work, real time deliverables, and exposure to an entire part of the education industry I had never been able to interact with before.”

-Chloe O’Neill, Spring 2021

"In just one semester, I engaged in rich classroom learning experiences and discussions, developed valuable new professional skills, and applied Evolutionary Learning and continuous improvement frameworks to develop sustainable solutions on behalf of a high-profile education sector client."

-Cameron Lineberger, Spring 2020

"CPRL was a fast-paced, constructive, and collaborative learning environment. Participating in CPRL allowed me the opportunity to engage with challenging, relevant, high-quality, and real-life learning experiences."

-Ramón Carranza Jr., Fall 2018

“My CPRL experience gave me an opportunity to stretch my comfort zone and learn the power of interdisciplinary work with my CPRL colleagues from diverse backgrounds. At the beginning, it challenged me many times, but, by the end, this experience became one of the key secrets of better understanding education issues from different perspectives.”

-Yunee H. Yoon, Spring 2020

What Career Services Does CPRL Offer?

We offer multiple career services and networking resources to help students and alumni navigate their careers.

Project Director working with two students

Guidance from Project Directors

Project Directors teach, coach, mentor, and support students helping students set development goals and providing feedback toward those goals and other competencies.

Career-Oriented Workshops

Career workshops include career panels with CPRL staff and alumni, resume and job search sessions, and other programming co-designed with each CPRL cohort.

CPRL event with a panelist of high schoolers

CPRL hosts talks with leaders in education and co-plans other events with students that provide even greater exposure to the education landscape and career paths. Visit Our Events page to see our recent events.

How Can I Join CPRL?

Graduate students at 25 professional programs at Columbia University and other universities around the country apply to our program. We offer our program in the fall and spring. Apply for an upcoming semester.

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