“If you talk of 50 years of working life… you have to reinvent yourself. You have to make something different out of yourself, rather than just find a new supply of energy.” – Peter Drucker
Live, Learn, and Create Like Peter Drucker
In 1971, after spending 28 years in American academia, Peter Drucker came to Claremont Graduate University. By this time, Drucker had already led several different lives: first fleeing the Nazis in Germany due to his critical journalism, then working in London as a bank economist, and finally residing in New York and Vermont where he held professorships in philosophy, politics, and management. Despite his numerous accomplishments, it was only after arriving at CGU that he embarked on his most productive phase. It was during this period that he produced the majority of his prolific writing and founded the business school that now bears his name.
What Drucker discovered at CGU — the freedom to explore both new and established interests and the opportunity to develop ideas that would revolutionize business and society in the 21st Century — is what SOAR now offers to successful leaders seeking their next journey. With a foundation firmly rooted in both the liberal arts and business, CGU and the Drucker School of Management offer SOAR fellows the chance to embark on a new chapter of their lives, emphasizing personal development, societal impact, and transformative education. If you, like Peter Drucker, envision the most productive years of your life still ahead, SOAR can help you connect with your purpose and start afresh.
What Comes After SUCCESS?
With significant emphasis on “making it,” many accomplished leaders experience a sense of loss following their achievements, accompanied by a lack of direction in navigating their future. Through SOAR, you will discover new pathways to meaning, community, and purpose within the unique learning environment of Claremont Graduate University, an institution focused solely on graduate-level education:
Personal development + education + community of learners = the path to reinvention
At Claremont Graduate University, we firmly believe in the power of thoughtful transition. When your career trajectory shifts or comes to an end, and you’re seeking a new journey to embark on, it’s time to join the path to personal revitalization. SOAR provides fellows with the opportunity to Seek, Observe, Act, and Renew, empowering them to make creative decisions about the next steps in their lives.
Together with your SOAR peers, you will experience the energizing effects of intergenerational exchange while taking classes alongside CGU students of all ages. With a built-in community of individuals in the same season in their lives, you’ll feel the camaraderie that comes from exploring new interests and learning from world class professors and lecturers in a safe environment to think, consider, be vulnerable, and feel supported. During weekly dinners with your co-fellows in the SOAR lounge, you’ll be able to socialize, work, and rest while on campus.
The Curriculum
The SOAR curriculum has been customized by Drucker School of Management professors to meet the needs of successful leaders transitioning in their careers. Anchored in transdisciplinarity and the liberal arts, SOAR offers both a core curriculum and the ability to enroll in elective university courses across a variety of disciplines. The SOAR core curriculum is built around reflection, life design, and self-development, and is supplemented with SOAR activities that support community, learning, well-being, and societal impact.
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- Museum of Me explores how museums tell stories as an entry point to tell your own story. You will reflect on your own personal narrative and then, like a curator, tell that story through objects in a way that considers how the audience will interpret you. We will ask you to delve into what stories you have told in the past, what you believe, what you have accomplished, what story you want to tell now, and what story you might want to tell in the future.
- Transitions uncovers the predictable emotions and challenges of change. You will consider your own relationship with change and learn the tools and mindsets to navigate any transition with awareness, patience, positivity, and intention. This course helps you to integrate your life up until this point and prepare to move forward into your next phase.
- Great Conversations uses books, texts, and poems to engage with some of the timeless questions that shape the human journey: What is truth? How do you know it? What is forgiveness? What is loss? What is joy? What is wonder? What does it mean to be a person? What is a life well-lived?
- Purpose and Impact helps you cultivate your own sense of purpose — finding the intersection between what you care about, what you are good at, and what the world needs – and ultimately define what you want your next contribution to be.
- Design Your Life brings you into the present moment to create awareness of what drives you and what gives you energy. With this foundation, you will apply design thinking tools and approaches as you generate and experiment with different ideas for what you want to grow into next.
Elective Courses
As a SOAR fellow, you will learn from professors and practitioners across many disciplines. This provides the opportunity to explore new and old interests, get inspired with new ideas, and craft a future that excites you. The 9-month SOAR program offers Elective Courses around the university to supplement the core SOAR programming, allowing you also to benefit from intergenerational learning and mentoring as you work alongside younger graduate and undergraduate students. The short-term, intensive program provides access to various disciplines through academic speakers from different disciplines.
Speaker Series
A SOAR-specific Speaker Series with diverse professionals, leaders, and academics will complement the work you do in the classroom. Speakers are selected to stimulate ideas and connections across disciplines, to offer practical insights about different kinds of life pursuits, and to inspire different approaches to having positive societal impact.
Societal Impact
The SOAR program enables fellows to connect themselves and their journey to the complex challenges facing our world. Fellows will engage in activities that allow them to explore their passions, learn about critical challenges facing the world, have an immediate impact, and begin to craft what they want to do next. Our collective interest in Societal Impact will be supported by the SOAR curriculum as well as speakers and general networking opportunities.
Community
In both versions of the SOAR Program, fellows will be supported to build close connections within their cohort and to network across the Claremont Consortium and all its partners. We know from research and experience that having community with others who are engaged in a similar life pursuit is essential to the process of exploration and growth: it creates support, spurs new ideas, and generates opportunities.
- Weekly cohort dinners on campus
- Biweekly speaker sessions on campus
- A SOAR lounge for the cohort to socialize, work, and rest while on campus
- Regular field trips to sites and partner organizations around Los Angeles
Community-building elements of the short-term, intensive program are:
- Regular cohort dinners and activities
- Peer to peer mentoring
- SOAR alumni portal and ongoing online connection
- Access to field trips and projects with partner organizations
Wellness
In addition to fostering community and purpose, which are critical components of wellness, the SOAR program creates access to regular programing for physical, spiritual, and mental well-being. The suite of offerings includes both educational programing and practice to support the fellows’ journey to greater wellness.
Time Commitment
The 9-month SOAR Program is in-person program an delivered in Claremont, CA. Fellows should expect to be on campus 2-4 days each week depending on the courses they select. The program begins in late August and runs through mid-May. Each week has core programming for SOAR Fellows in addition to dinners, cohort events and activities, and elective courses of each fellow’s choosing. Core classes and events will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday each week.
As a fellow, you should also expect regularly to venture out for field trips, diverse learning opportunities around Claremont and the LA metro area. With its emphasis on international engagement and having an expansive worldview the SOAR Program also includes one international trip during the Spring Semester Break. We encourage fellows to allow 7 days for travel.
The short-term, intensive SOAR Program is a combination of 3-day intensive retreats delivered in Claremont, CA and online content delivered between retreats. Specific dates and duration are forthcoming. Please check back for updates about this program or inquire directly for more information.
Program Fee
The fee for the 9-month 2023-24 program is $50,000. This includes all SOAR on-campus activities, dinners, speakers, classes, and field trips. It also includes on-campus parking, books and class materials for SOAR classes, and tickets for relevant class outings as well as lodging, food, and local transportation for the program’s international trip. The fee does not include the cost for housing in or travel to Claremont, or the travel expense for the international trip.
Costs for the program are reviewed annually and may change the program fee for future cohorts.
The fee for the short-term, intensive SOAR Program is forthcoming. Please check back for updates about this program or inquire directly for more information.
Faculty
Lori Anne Ferrell
Dean, School of Arts & Humanities
Director, Early Modern Studies Program
Director, Kingsley & Kate Tufts Poetry Awards
Joshua Goode
Associate Professor of Cultural Studies and History
Chair, Cultural Studies (Fall 2022)
Jeremy Hunter
Associate Professor of Practice
Founding Director, Executive Mind Leadership Institute
Program Options
The SOAR Program will be offered both as a 9-month on-campus experience and as a short-term intensive program that combines on-campus and online content:
• The inaugural cohort of the 9-month program will begin classes in August of 2023. Admissions for the program will be open from December 15, 2022, through July 31, 2023.
• The short-term intensive program will begin in January 2024. Admissions for the program will be open from July 1, 2023, through January 10, 2024. Please check back for updates about this program or inquire directly for more information.