Claremont McKenna College President Hiram Chodosh Unveils National Blueprint for AI-Led Civic Leadership

As he enters his final year as president of Claremont McKenna College, Hiram Chodosh is preparing for his “next chapter,” one he hopes will include writing, teaching, and contributions to resolving national and global challenges in education, law, and civic leadership within the nonprofit, philanthropic, and public sectors.

His focus during his 13-year tenure at Claremont McKenna has been on two primary commitments: helping individuals overcome barriers to their goals and aspirations, and enabling people to navigate societal obstacles that divide them.

Claremont McKenna College was founded in 1946 as Claremont Men’s College by World War II veterans, tasked with preparing future leaders of private and public enterprise through a distinctive liberal arts curriculum. Rather than training students for specific careers, the institution aimed to produce graduates who could apply lessons from history, philosophy, literature, the arts, and sciences alongside business and government courses.

Mabel Benson, wife of founding president George Benson (a returning veteran), wrote in the college’s first catalog: “There is no incompatibility between an education planned for specific types of leadership and an education designed to develop a liberally informed mind. In fact, real leadership presupposes the latter, and, in turn, a liberally informed mind can find no more satisfying vocation than in such leadership.”

As CMC’s fifth president, Chodosh has implemented major changes aligned with this founding philosophy: the Open Academy, the Kravis Department of Integrated Sciences, the Campaign for CMC: Responsible Leadership, the Care Center, the Soll Center for Student Opportunity, and campus expansion that increased enrollment to 1,300 students—nearly half male and half female—from across the globe.

Chodosh’s wife, Priya Junnar, who is also retiring at year’s end, has directed the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum for over a decade. This program brings scholars, public figures, thought leaders, artists, and innovators to campus four nights weekly throughout the academic year to engage with students, faculty, and the broader CMC community.

The Athenaeum, which has hosted lunch speakers, roundtables, and smaller presentations since 1983, makes Claremont McKenna (and its six sister institutions) unique in higher education in America. Student fellows are selected annually to host, introduce, and moderate discussions with featured speakers, who often spend extra time meeting with students, including the student press and podcast teams.

Another unique aspect of CMC is that nearly three out of four students participate in research with faculty members, largely through the college’s eleven campus research institutes and centers. CMC’s reputation and outreach were greatly enhanced in 2023, as the Campaign for CMC announced it had raised nearly $1.1 billion.

The new funding bolstered existing programs and enabled the launch of the $400 million project to build scientific and quantitative fluency for all students via the revolutionary Kravis Department of Integrated Sciences inside the brand-new Robert Day Sciences Center. This initiative now requires that all students take the Codes of Life course to learn how to develop their own artificial intelligence (AI) generative tools in the context of a socially scientific problem—teaching them coding, economics, ethics, and efficacy.

Chodosh described this program as enabling graduates to address today’s and tomorrow’s challenges through public presentations in teams before an authority, a pedagogical approach he believes will be transformative for their careers. He also noted that the initiative serves as a template for a national project with the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, where 125 college presidents have pledged to develop civic commitments and programs supporting constructive dialogue and collaborative problem-solving.

A longer-term goal is to expand this project to 500 to 1,000 institutions, scaling what Chodosh called “a drop of water in the academic ocean” into a movement that democratizes hands-on learning for students previously lacking resources.

Chodosh emphasized the importance of pedagogy that encourages critical thinking beyond political lenses. He argued classrooms should foster student interactions that continue after class—where most real learning occurs—to cultivate independent thought and self-authorship. At Claremont McKenna, students are encouraged to learn through materials and simulations to gain experience in leadership roles they often assume early in their careers.

Chodosh acknowledged the challenges of a world where many lack opportunities to build social skills or collaborate face-to-face due to digital isolation. He stressed that higher education can only address limited aspects of this issue, calling for greater collaboration between K-12 and higher education institutions to prepare students for adulthood. The college has accepted fewer than 10% of applicants nationally, reflecting its selective admissions process.