Since 1997, the Coca-Cola Pre-College Program at the Leadership Center at Morehouse College, the first of its kind at a historically black college and university (HCBU), has been a beacon in providing leadership training to high school students and college pre-freshmen. 
For seven days each summer, students from high schools across the United States are introduced to the traits, skills and behaviors necessary for effective 21st century leadership. Each day the program accentuates a leadership principle: love, integrity, courage, wisdom and hope.
The curriculum is focused on personal and interpersonal leadership skills emphasizing the development of character, civility and community. Training sessions are highly interactive and diverse, including lectures, workshops, rituals, journaling and outdoor leadership focused activities. During the week long experience, each day accentuates a leadership principle (love, integrity, courage, wisdom, and hope), and the curriculum builds personal and interpersonal leadership skills using indoor and outdoor group activities: from Tai Chi, a ropes team-building course and historical tours, to rituals and ceremonies such as truth-telling sessions, mask-making, and a "Cave of the Heart Ritual‚" derived from Plato's Allegory of the Cave. The activities emphasize self-awareness as a basis for better understanding of ethical leadership practices in the 21st century. For many, the experience is life altering. 
"Dr. Fluker helped me to see that we wear false masks all the time to hide our true selves. So I felt that if the universe ended up seeing the actual Mark Anthony Hill I wouldn't mind‚"
-Mark Anthony Hill, 2008 Participant
"Tai Chi training during the Pre-College Program was my first experience at finding a center. Actually finding the core of my body, my energy, and turning that into action was pretty cool."
-Tony Larkin, 2008 Participant
 |
Apply online for the 2012 Coca-Cola Pre-College Leadership Program |
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Whatever you do, strive to do it so well that no man living and no man dead, and no man yet to be born can do it any better."
Benjamin Elijah Mays
"A Dream is the bearer of a new possibility, the enlarged horizon, the great hope."
Howard Thurman
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"It is not what you keep, but what you give that makes you happy."
Benjamin Elijah Mays
"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
Howard Thurman
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"As we face the unpredictable future, have faith that man and God will assist us all the way."
Benjamin Elijah Mays
"At the core of life is a hard purposefulness, a determination to live."
Howard Thurman
"Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. No individual or nation can be great if it does not have a concern for the least of these."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
