Program Leaders: 

  • Creative Inquiry: Khanjan Mehta, Bill Whitney
  • Iacocca Institute: Scott Koerwer, Leah Mason, Carrie Duncan, 

Cohort Size (2026): 16 Students

Pre-requisites:

  • Successful completion of the Global, Lehigh Valley, Silicon Valley, or Campus Social Impact Fellowship with at least one compelling externally-calibrated outcome.

 

Program Summary
The Creative Inquiry - Iacocca Institute Sustainable Futures Fellowship is a high-intensity leadership development program built on a simple but powerful truth: leaders catalyze change and create new leaders. Designed for advanced and highly motivated Lehigh students who have excelled in the Impact Fellowships, this experience accelerates their entrepreneurial leadership journey while amplifying their global impact. The challenge for these seasoned changemakers is no longer proving their ability to identify opportunities, create value, and advance social ventures forward; it is about learning how to deepen self-understanding, draw in, embrace, and amplify the leadership of others, and interact  across cultures and contexts while addressing a complex-multisystem, global challenge. The CI-ISF Fellowship equips students to do just that: combining deep self-reflection with hands-on leadership practice in real-world, interdisciplinary, cross-cultural contexts.


Fellows will hone their listening skills, learn tools and tactics to reframe challenges,  pivot, and act decisively when experiencing  uncertainty, while also building the vision, empathy, and resilience required to mobilize others. They realize that true leadership matures when it is shared—when one’s growth is advanced by supporting the growth of others, turning personal insight into collective strength and high performing teams. To this end, Fellows design and co-create a week-long Leadership Intensive focused on Humanitarian Design and Social Enterprise—the very frameworks and practices they learned through the Impact Fellowships. In doing so, they become global leaders, having engaged in self-directed and transformative learning, with a broader vision to shape solutions and systems, and the foresight to nurture future generations of leaders.

 

What do Iacocca Sustainable Futures Fellows actually do?

Fellows enroll in CINQ 389 (1 credit) and meet weekly for 75 minutes, alternating between leadership development workshops and strategy sessions on refining the HDSE Virtual Academy and organizing the HDSE Leadership Intensive. Outside of this weekly meeting, Fellows are expected to:

  1. Participate in the Iacocca Global Leadership Intensive (IGLI) Workshop, a mandatory two-day leadership retreat hosted by the Iacocca Institute in early February.
  2. Serve as referees for mid-semester and end-of-semester Impact Fellowship Design Reviews, providing critical feedback and sharpening evaluative skills.
  3. Offer strategic guidance and systems-level insight to two Impact Fellowship teams, meeting with each team twice during the semester for 60-90 minutes.
  4. Contribute to the ongoing refinement of the Humanitarian Design and Social Enterprise (HDSE) Virtual Academy, a collection of ~30 Google Classroom–based learning experiences that equip students worldwide to pursue context-appropriate design and entrepreneurial action. Each Fellow selects and advances a passion project aimed at strengthening the Virtual Academy’s content or pedagogy.
  5. Collaborate with international partners in Brazil, India, Kazakhstan, or the Philippines to co-design and coordinate the upcoming HDSE Leadership Intensive.

Building on their spring semester work, four Fellows travel together to each site to lead the execution of the HDSE Leadership Intensive—a high-octane, week-long, in-person workshop convening interdisciplinary cohorts of ~40 highly-motivated students in four regions. Fellows design and facilitate this hands-on, hearts-on experience, fostering transformative learning and entrepreneurial action as participants co-create innovative and sustainable solutions to pressing challenges. Through immersive, real-world projects, participants develop the skillsets, mindsets, and portfolios necessary to address complex, multi-system, societal issues.

Locations and Dates:

  • São Leopoldo, Brazil: March 2026 (Spring Break)
  • Almaty, Kazakhstan: May 2026
  • Kuppam, India: July 2026
  • Manila, Philippines: July 2026

Fellows re-enroll in CINQ 389 (1 credit) for a reflective, forward-looking semester that consolidates their leadership journey. In these weekly 75-minute sessions, they engage in hands-on workshops that deepen self-awareness and translate lessons from their fieldwork into practice. Central to the experience are meaningful conversations with accomplished leaders across sectors—dialogues that challenge assumptions, sharpen judgment, and expand their capacity to lead in complexity. Examples of these conversations include:

  1. With university leaders: How does an institution make high-stakes decisions that balance mission, financial sustainability, and competing stakeholder interests? (Joe Helble, Nathan Urban?)
  2. With coaching experts: How do leaders make sense of constant encounters with difference, and cultivate inclusive environments that unlock collective potential? (Lina Rodriquez?)
  3. With CEOs of global enterprises: What does it take to make rapid, consequential decisions under pressure while safeguarding long-term vision and values? (Ryan Grant, MD/MBA, CEO and Founder Vori Health and Nomad Health, CJ Fraleigh?)
  4. With nonprofit executives: How can leaders scale impact with limited resources while staying grounded in community needs? (Amy Weaver? Peter Navario?)
  5. With social entrepreneurs: What does it mean to balance innovation, financial viability, and social responsibility in ventures tackling pressing challenges? (Amit Bhatnagar?)
  6. With policymakers and diplomats: How are global crises navigated at the intersection of politics, culture, and competing national interests? (Rich Verma?)
  7. With technology innovators: How can leaders anticipate the unintended consequences of emerging technologies while fostering innovation responsibly? (Dean Kroker?)
  8. With alumni changemakers: What lessons emerge from navigating failure, resilience, and renewal in personal leadership journeys?

  1. Offer strategic guidance and systems-level insight to two Impact Fellowship teams, meeting with each team twice during the semester for 60-90 minutes.
  2. Passion Project: Complete an assessment of the HDSE Leadership Intensive they designed and led, using lessons learned to strengthen both the Virtual Academy and the overall structure and content of the Intensive. In collaboration with faculty mentors, Fellows also advance an Impact Fellowship–related initiative, translating reflection into institutional or pedagogical innovation. Finally, they prepare to hand the reins to the next cohort of Fellows, ensuring continuity and ongoing growth of the Fellowship.
  3. Serve as referees for the Impact Fellowship Design Reviews, reinforcing their evaluative and coaching skills.
  4. Immerse themselves in self-directed learning of systems thinking and leadership frameworks (i.e. Influence, Persuasion, Negotiation, Conflict, Empathy, Communication and Decision-making frameworks).
  5. Create a 2-minute video narrative that distills their CI-ISF Fellowship journey, their Lehigh experience, and their aspirations as Future Makers into a coherent and compelling story. These video clips will be showcased at a graduation dinner in the presence of Lehigh leadership and external stakeholders. 

Covered Expenses:

  • Visa (if necessary)
  • International airfare to HDSE LI location (from NYC or Philadelphia)
  • Lodging (shared-room basis)
  • Breakfast, dinner, a few lunches
  • Local transportation
  • Meals at any and all program-related events on campus

Expenses Not Covered:

  • Daily Lunch
  • International calling, eSIM cards, etc.
  • Travel to/from your home to the U.S. departure airport.
  • Other incidental expenses (souvenirs, any travel outside the dates of the LI, etc.)