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OCFA’s Leadership for the Public Good Summer Fellowship

The Office of Competitive Fellowships and Awards (OCFA) at Towson University seeks to encourage and support students in activities aligned with TU’s mission of preparing graduates who will serve as effective, ethical leaders and engaged citizens.  The summer fellowship will support 2 students to engage in efforts that aim to effect positive change in communities on- and off- campus and that will foster TU student leaders for the public good.

We are looking to support activities that include community engagement, internships, or research (or a combination of two or more of these activities) occurring over a 10 week-period in summer 2025. Collaboration or partnership with an external organization is highly encouraged, and students should be the drivers of the project.  Projects must not be part of a class assignment. Students are required to identify a faculty mentor for their project and must give an oral presentation about their project in the fall semester of 2025 at the fall forum and meet with the Director of OCFA during the period of the award and apply for an external competitive fellowship or scholarship.  The stipend for 10 weeks is $5,000. Students are encouraged to discuss their proposal if they have any questions with Dr. Mary Sajini Devadas at tucfa@towson.edu

Eligibility 

Applicants must:

• be undergraduate students in their first, sophomore or junior year working towards a bachelor’s degree.
• be enrolled at TU in Fall 2025.
• have at least a 3.0 GPA
• agree to meet all responsibilities of the award.
• identify a faculty mentor for their project (faculty mentors will receive up to $1000 honorarium for mentoring students).

To apply, please submit the following materials by Friday March 28^{th, 2025} 5 pm EST.

• Application form – https://forms.office.com/r/kxbQ2rrP6w
• Proposal Narrative comprising:
• Project description (max. 1000 words). Describe the project to be conducted, your preparation to undertake the project, and what you hope to accomplish. Describe any partners, sites, and pertinent resources necessary for this project.
• Project timeline (detailed weekly activities planned)

Upload the two sections above (2a and 2b) together in a single pdf document via the application form.

The faculty mentor recommendation/letter of support – This should be uploaded by the faculty mentor by the deadline Friday March 28th, 2025, 5 pm EST to this form: https://forms.office.com/r/BNFz6SxWhV. The letter of support from the faculty mentor should describe the degree to which the project narrative and idea is the students’ work and their agreement to mentor the student through the summer.

Categorised in: Students

This post was written by Patterson, Richard E.