Learn to Learn: President Hiram Chodosh on Leadership, Purpose, and What Comes Next

President Hiram Chodosh has spent 13 years leading ClaremontMcKenna College by asking one question above all others: What are we here to do?In this special episode of CMC Conversations — recorded inpartnership with CMC Leads — Parishi Kanuga ‘26 sits down with President Chodosh to explore what responsible leadership actually looks like in practice: not the professional title, not the authority, but the small acts, the hard questions, and the courage to face what you don’t know. He shares about growing up in New Jersey with little interestin school, finding the same fundamental question across theater, law, and higher education, what it means to hold your own value system inside a world of professional incentives, the India mediation project that became something no one could have predicted, and how to develop the confidence to handle your own lack of confidence.President Chodosh reflects on his final year at CMC, what CMCLeads: The Summit means to him, and what it’s like to face a new unfamiliar territory — just like the rest of us.