The Campaign School at Yale kicks off; trains leaders on how to run campaigns

The Campaign School at Yale kicked off at Yale’s School of Law for a full-week of campaign training.

The prestigious program has been around for 29 years with this year's class being composed of 79 leaders. More than two-thirds are women of color and 18 are Connecticut residents.

“This is my idea of a good time, every year, it's seating phenomenal students from all over the country and the world to be trained by the best in the business from both sides of the aisle,” Patti Russo, executive director at The Campaign School at Yale, said.

During the training, students will get to learn the necessary tools to run effective campaigns.

Ruth Fortune is one of the many leaders attending this year’s program.

Fortune is currently an attorney and a member of the Hartford Board of Education, but she said it was the experience of being undocumented that made her realize the positive and impactful changes that can be made on the federal government’s level.

She said she and her family arrived as undocumented immigrants from Haiti to the United States in the early 2000s, and remained undocumented for about a decade.

Then in 2008 after a hurricane destroyed much of Haiti, the U.S. government granted Haitian immigrants a temporary protected status which led to Fortune receiving work authorizations and social security numbers.

That allowed her and her family to work without the fear of being deported and eventually send remittances to her family in Haiti.

“It really taught me that it took nothing away from anyone else for us to get this status, so there’s so much good that the government can do," Fortune said.

As a mother of three in the Hartford Public Schools system, she said she aspires to be in an elected position.

“I know I want to be of service for the right reasons, I know I believe in policy that can really better the lives of all people, I need to know how to actually get into elected office and The Campaign School at Yale can really teach me how to do that," Fortune said.

With two-thirds of this year's class being women of color, Fortune added it's extremely important for women to be the spaces where decisions are being made.

"It's important because we need women for our country to thrive, not for a political party to thrive so we need to train women from all viewpoints, to be better coached, better trained, so they can run effective campaigns," she said.

Ojala Naeem said she joined the training program to gain the knowledge to run for a higher office.

Naeem currently serves as a member of Windsor’s Town Council, but added there’s a lot of different areas she’s looking to improve.

“How to build better strategies, how to run more effective campaigns, how to run with my audiences, there's so much that I’m looking to soak up,” Naeem said.

As a daughter of immigrants, she said it was her grandfather who always encouraged her to push the limit.

“He would say this girl is going to become the president of the United States one day and I’m not putting that off the table just yet," she said.

The Campaign School at Yale will offer two one-day trainings. An online class will be held on July 18 and an in-person class will be held on July 18 in Greenwich.

Registration for next year's annual training will open in January 2026.