Fall 2025
By Hongtao Hu

Rice is arguably leading the charge in higher education when it comes to technology, whether through the Nexus at the Ion or a newly announced major in artificial intelligence, but it’s also leading the charge in leadership.

The Doerr Institute for New Leaders aims to provide students lifelong leadership training and offers a variety of programs for undergraduates. Founded in 2015 with a $50 million gift from Ann ’75, ’76 and John Doerr ’73, ’74 — both of whom received their bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Rice — the institute is currently celebrating its 10th anniversary. Since 2023, the Doerr Institute has been under the direction of Bernard “Bernie” Banks, who retired from the U.S. Army in 2016 as a brigadier general after having led West Point’s Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership.

“You have to take ownership for your own leadership development,” said Banks, who most recently served as associate dean for leadership development and inclusion and clinical professor of management and organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management before arriving at Rice. “You have to do what it takes to turn that behavior change into a sustainable habit, which is why our programs are opt-in, as opposed to mandated.”

Banks stressed the importance of Doerr programs being self-selected, comparing them to required leadership development activities in U.S. service academies, and Rice students are self-selecting in droves: The Doerr Institute engages with between 30% to 40% of Rice’s undergraduate population — no paltry amount. However, the cost certainly is: Doerr programs are free for students. While the programs come at no cost to students, it’s their accessibility that has enabled more than 7,000 Rice students to participate since the Institute’s founding.

A full 100% of Rice students who participate in O-Week (orientation week) complete the Doerr program match survey, which helps them find the best offering for them — from one-on-one coaching in Activation to group coaching in Synthesis to developing targeted leader competencies in Catalyst. A further 20% of those first-year students go on to sign up for one or more of the Doerr programs and complete them in their freshman term, with over 500 students annually receiving leadership tutelage from International Coaching Federation-credentialed trainers. 

And these programs aren’t just for undergrads: Last year, the Doerr Institute enrolled 1,495 students, including 708 graduate students. Doerr also provides invaluable off-campus excursions for cohorts to better understand the practical effects of leadership. 

“We had a recent trip down to NASA where students met with the current flight director, Emily Nelson, and they had the opportunity to see how she leads on a daily basis,” Banks said. “Then they got to pepper her with questions: What does her job entail? How has she grown in her own skill set as a leader? What advice would she have for them as they pursued their leader development?”

Students can opt in even further with the Doerr Student Ambassadors program. These undergraduate and graduate students represent the Doerr Institute across campus, participate in focused leader development opportunities and connect Rice students to Doerr programs.

“Student ambassadors range across all residential colleges and a variety of academic departments — they’re kind of like evangelists,” Banks said. “They’ve demonstrated a tremendous commitment to fostering their own development, and usually they’re engaged in multiple programs.”

The Doerr Institute is also keeping up with the times. Marketing and communications specialist Kelley Prust produces the weekly “Leading Owls” podcast, sharing insightful stories about student leadership at Rice, delivered from club leaders and social entrepreneurs alike. There have been 34 episodes produced to date, with more in the pipeline.

Doerr also measures their programs’ effectiveness over current semesters. The research and evaluation team at Doerr is led by psychologists Dr. Ryan Brown and Dr. Aaron Pomerantz. 

“They create empirically validated psychometric instruments that allow us to accurately measure any leader development construct we are intent on targeting, for example, measuring leader self-efficacy or leader identity,” Banks said. “So through these psychometric instruments, we can take pre- and post-surveys to see if any statistically significant improvement transpired.”

Rice students who don’t intentionally engage in leader development activities see little significant growth in their leadership capabilities, Banks said. In comparison, Doerr has shown to foster growth in student-elected categories, such as self-perception and communication. 

Rice was recently awarded the Carnegie Foundation’s Leadership for Public Purpose classification, making it one of the first 25 schools to receive this distinction. The Doerr Institute, together with partners across campus, supported the university’s efforts to earn this classification, which the Carnegie Foundation defines as “a commitment to advancing the betterment of society and promoting the dignity and general welfare of all its members.”

“We also served as kind of the conceptual engine, if you would, for the creation of [LPP certification],” Banks said. “We will continue to work closely with Carnegie as we try to bring other schools into the fold so we can elevate leader development across higher education.”
 

If a student is truly intent on making a big dent in the universe, Doerr is one of the resources that can help them to do that more effectively.

In addition to its programs for students, Doerr offers professional development courses such as CoachRICE — an International Coaching Federation Level 1 accredited program that equips emerging coaches with foundational knowledge, practical skills and hands-on experience to become an ICF-credentialed coach — and a six-week Measurement Course. This rigorous, practice-based online course is designed for professionals who want to take an evidence-based approach to leader development and provides the tools and language to design, evaluate and defend the impact of leadership programs.

Banks said that, in a time when leadership and character is desperately lacking across the U.S., Doerr fills this need. 

“Organizations overwhelmingly say there’s a gap between the leaders they require and the leaders they possess,” Banks said. “If a student is truly intent on making a big dent in the universe, Doerr is one of the resources that can help them to do that more effectively.”
 

Research on Leadership

Since its inception, the Doerr Institute has invested in the rigorous assessment and evaluation of its student programs with the understanding that most interventions with human beings have little to no impact. This commitment to impact assessment allows them to focus their time and resources on programs that truly work, and remains one of the most unique aspects of the Doerr Institute across the higher education landscape.

In summer 2025, the Research and Evaluation Team launched the first of a series of studies on the long-term impact of our leader development initiatives among Rice alumni. The R&E team also continued to shape its agenda into a three-pronged program:

1. Developmental self-concept: An examination of individual differences in the extent to which leaders see the development of followers as being central to their role as leaders.
    
2. Aspirational self-clarity: Studies of people’s certainty in their vision of who they wish to become, and how this clarity is associated with personal growth, purpose in life and general wellbeing.
    
3. Leadership across cultures: Examining leadership ideals as a function of different cultural norms, and how these norms can positively and negatively influence leader-follower dynamics.

By the Numbers

• 8 manuscripts published, including an upcoming article in the journal Leader to Leader about the importance of evidence-based leader development efforts both in and beyond Higher Education.
   
• 9 manuscripts currently in preparation or already under review, including a measure of Developmental Self-Concept, which measures the degree to which leaders’ view developing others as central to their identity.
   
• 6 studies in preparation to be launched starting in Fall 2025.
   
• 6 national and international conferences at which the R&E Team shared their evidence-based insights on leader development, including the European Association of Social Psychology, the International Leadership Association, the Leadership Educators Institute, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Kravis Leadership Conference.