Originally created by the African-American presidents of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) to help prepare traditionally underrepresented groups for university and college presidencies and chancellorships.
[4] MLI has partnered with Association of Public and Land Grant Universities (APLU) and the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities to expand its reach to faculty and administrators that are interested in moving to upper administrative positions.
The faculty in the Summer Institute volunteer their time to support the advancement of underrepresented groups.
Proteges meet for one week in the summer and are then paired with a sitting president or chancellor for the following year.
The initiative has been highly successful with sixty proteges appointed as president or chancellor in the programs fifteen years.