Center for Expanding Leadership & Opportunity

Twenty years of the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership has built something substantial: a validated research infrastructure, a nationally normed dataset, and a community of institutions committed to understanding human development rigorously. It has also clarified what the field still does not know well enough. How do the environmental conditions that predict student development shift as higher education and secondary schools themselves shift? What does the rise of online and hybrid learning mean for the developmental experiences that matter most? Which student populations are still underrepresented in the research, and what are we missing because of it? How do the durable skills students develop in high school carry forward through college and into civic and professional life? The 2026-2027 cycle is not just year 21. It is the foundation for the next chapter of this work. Every institution that joins contributes to a dataset that will be used to answer questions that have not yet been asked. Early Enrollment closes July 31. https://lnkd.in/gj7bsFFB #MSL20 #HumanDevelopment #LeadershipResearch #HigherEd #YouthDevelopment #K12Education

After nearly 7 years at Uncharted Learning, NFP | INCubatoredu, tomorrow is my last day as Director of Programs. It’s strange trying to summarize a chapter that held so much life inside of it. I joined UL in July 2019 and had the privilege of helping shape entrepreneurship curriculum across the country. Along the way, I worked with some of the smartest, funniest, most mission-driven people I’ve ever met. We built new programs, solved impossible problems, survived a pandemic, debated fonts and gradients with intensity (Margot), and most importantly, helped students think bigger about themselves and their futures. My own son was one of them! I’m incredibly proud of what we built together and deeply grateful for every educator, student, and partner who was part of the journey. Next up for me: I’m excited to join the Center for Expanding Leadership & Opportunity as the Managing Director of Learning Design and Impact, where I’ll continue working at the intersection of secondary education, leadership, and student impact. And one more thing: if you’re passionate about education, curriculum, entrepreneurship, innovation, and building meaningful learning experiences for students, my former role at UL has officially been posted. Truly, it’s a special place filled with people who care deeply about the work and each other. Hit me up with questions. https://lnkd.in/g55Mibey

Enrollment in the MSL is the beginning of a supported process, not a transaction. After your institution enrolls, our implementation team works with you during the verification window (July through December 2026) to finalize your sample, customize study materials, support IRB coordination, and confirm your data collection window. Data collection runs January through June 2027, with your specific timeline set during verification. A team of survey professionals is available throughout. After data collection closes, you receive a raw analytic-ready dataset, summary reports, and access to an interactive dashboard for benchmarking against national norms, peer institutions, and your own longitudinal data. Every participating institution receives a consultative debrief with members of the research team. Early Enrollment is open through July 31 at $7,000. Enroll: https://lnkd.in/gj7bsFFB Questions: msl@expandingleadership.org #StudentAffairs #HigherEd #LeadershipEducation #HumanDevelopment #StudentSuccess

One reason institutions do not measure what matters is that measurement feels like one more thing on a list that is already too long. The Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership was designed with that reality in mind. Study materials are templated and ready to customize. Implementation support is built into the process. The data comes back in formats that work for institutional research offices, student affairs teams, and academic units alike. This was a founding design decision made by a team that has spent 20 years working inside institutions and understands what sustainable participation actually requires. High-value and low-burden means the data is worth gathering, and the process of gathering it does not consume more than it produces. If capacity has been part of your institution's conversation, reach out. Participation may be more manageable than you expect. Early Enrollment is open through July 31 at $7,000. Enroll: https://lnkd.in/gj7bsFFB Questions: msl@expandingleadership.org #HigherEd #HumanDevelopment #AssessmentInHigherEd #LeadershipDevelopment #K12Education

Every campus has stories about students who were transformed by a program. The student who found their voice. The team that learned to navigate conflict. The first-generation student who graduated with something they could not have named at orientation but carried with them into the world. Those stories are not just meaningful. They are evidence. The question is whether your institution has the data to show what made them possible, and to build the conditions that make them more likely for every student, not just the ones whose stories get told. The Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership gives campuses a shared, data-informed understanding of how students develop. Not to replace the story, but to understand it well enough to replicate it, to scale it, and to make the case for it when a budget meeting or accreditation review asks for more than a narrative. The goal is institutions that produce more of those moments, for more students, by design rather than by chance. Early Enrollment is open through July 31. https://lnkd.in/gj7bsFFB #HumanDevelopment #YouthDevelopment #HigherEd #EvidenceBasedPractice #LeadershipDevelopment

In the early years of the Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership, the founding team was working from a straightforward observation: the programs designed to develop young people were growing rapidly, and almost none of them were being studied rigorously. Programs were being built, staffed, and funded on the assumption that they worked. Occasionally, an institution would survey participants. Rarely would those surveys use validated instruments. Almost never would the results be compared to anything outside the institution's own walls. The MSL was designed to change that. To give the field the same research infrastructure that other disciplines of student development took for granted. To build a dataset large enough to identify patterns that no single institution could see. Twenty years later, that infrastructure exists. The dataset spans 500+ institutions, 610,000+ students, 23 countries, and covers outcomes that matter across the full arc of human development. The question that started it all is still the one that drives the work: what actually shapes socially responsible human development in young people? If your institution missed the April deadline, there is still time to join this cycle. Early Enrollment for the 2026-2027 Multi-Institutional Study of Leadership is now open through July 31 at $7,000. Participation is designed to be high-value and low-burden. Here's what participating institutions receive: - Nationally normed, psychometrically validated data on student development outcomes, benchmarked against peer and aspirational institutions. - Findings disaggregated by student demographics and program participation, so you can see not just what is happening but for whom. - An interactive dashboard for real-time analysis, alongside a raw analytic-ready dataset for your institutional research office. - A consultative debrief with the research team after data collection closes, designed to help you interpret findings and identify what to do next. Learn more and enroll at https://lnkd.in/gj7bsFFB Questions: msl@expandingleadership.org #HigherEd #StudentAffairs #LeadershipEducation #StudentEngagement #HigherEdAssessment #InstitutionalEffectiveness #HigherEdResearch

Leadership education has no shortage of frameworks. What is harder to find is rigorous evidence of whether the programs built on those theories are actually producing the outcomes they promise. Whether the students who need development most are being reached. Whether the educational environments institutions create are doing what they are designed to do. That gap between theory and practice is not a research problem. It is a practical one, and young people pay for it when programs are designed on assumptions rather than evidence. MSL exists to close that gap. Not by replacing theory, but by giving institutions the data to test it, refine it, and build programs that actually deliver on what the theory promises. Enrollment for 2026-2027 is open. Priority pricing closes today https://lnkd.in/gj7bsFFB #LeadershipDevelopment #YouthDevelopment #HigherEd #EvidenceBasedPractice

When 450+ institutions participate in the same study, using the same validated instruments, they build something that no single institution can build alone: a shared, nationally normed picture of how young people develop and what educational environments make the difference. That shared picture is what makes peer benchmarking meaningful. It's what makes longitudinal comparison possible. It's what allows an institution in Denver to learn something relevant from data collected in Texas or Tallahassee. Twenty years of that shared commitment is what the MSL dataset represents. And every institution that joins the 2026-2027 cycle makes it more precise, more representative, and more useful for everyone. Priority pricing closes tomorrow, April 30. Enrollment: https://lnkd.in/gj7bsFFB #MSL20 #LeadershipResearch #HigherEd #StudentSuccess