Civic leaders to join the CU community in new program

The Cornell Public Service Center has announced a new initiative, strengthening its university-community partnerships: the Cornell Civic Leaders Fellowship Program.

The program will enable four outstanding community leaders involved in economic and community development efforts to join the Cornell community of scholars as both learners and teachers for an academic year. It has been made possible, in part, by a grant from the Mid Atlantic Consortium--Leadership for Institutional Change and the Kellogg Foundation. The grant encourages institutions to build collaborative relationships with their local communities and will allow the Public Service Center to award $5,000 to each selected civic fellow.

This Cornell Civic Leaders Fellowship Program seeks to accomplish the following:

• support leaders -- both within and outside the academy -- who possess the knowledge, skills, competencies, values, morals and wisdom to provide stewardship to critical institutional and community problem-solving efforts;
• foster university and community practices which encourage greater commitment to community building and social responsibility; and
• strengthen and build regional university-community collaborative relationships.

The civic leaders fellows will provide the university community with valuable opportunities for knowledge exchange and, in return, the university will make faculty expertise and resources available to the fellows to work on their projects," said Leonardo Vargas-Mendez, interim director of the Public Service Center. "Civic leaders will lecture in classes occasionally, participate in workshops and forums and learn from research experts."

Application requirements include: a longstanding history of community involvement; submission of a proposal that addresses a community need or problem, which the fellow would research during the fellowship; residency within an approximate 100-mile radius of Cornell; and, a personal statement explaining how this experience will affect the individual.

Recipients may use the $5,000 to support travel, housing or sabbatical leave expenses, as well as for community project expenses or sponsoring agency support.

Fellows will be selected through a process that includes community and university representation. Applications for the 2001-2002 academic year are due July 9, and selections will be announced Aug. 6.

Contact the Public Service Center at 255-1148 or cupsc@cornell.edu for further information or to receive an application. The application is also available online at the Cornell Public Service Center's site at www.psc.cornell.edu and at www.cardi.cornell.edu, the web site for the Community and Rural Development Institute. Hard copies are available at the Public Service Center, the Upstate Chapter of the American Planning Association and local branches of the following: Cornell Cooperative Extension, library, Information and Referral office and United Way agency.