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Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities

UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMS

Applications are closed for 2024-2025. Applications for the 2025-2026 fellowship will open in spring 2025.

Humanities in the Real World: Undergraduate Advocacy Fellowship

Are you interested in advocating for the humanities on Capitol Hill? Do you want to use your humanities expertise to tackle complex real-world problems? Do you want to develop strong project management skills and learn how to leverage your expertise as a humanist to apply for internships and jobs?

From Fall 2024 through Spring 2025, the HRW Undergraduate Advocacy Fellowship program offers undergraduate students of any major the opportunity to participate in an advocacy project that enable them to apply their humanities scholarship to the urgent concerns in the world around them. Students will articulate connections between humanities majors, skills, and exciting careers.

Fellows are paid $1,000/semester for two semesters.

What You’ll Accomplish:

Humanities Advocacy:

  • Gain experience with humanities advocacy in civic and legislative processes through the creation of an advocacy project that will be presented on Capitol Hill during Humanities Advocacy Day in March 2025.
  • Attend public humanities events in Nashville and review them by writing public-facing articles on our blog
  • Interview Vanderbilt alumni who have built successful careers through their humanities education and write about them

Career Development:

  • Plan a Vanderbilt alumni interview panel in Fall 2024
  • Plan an internship panel featuring Vanderbilt seniors in Spring 2025
  • Work with the Career Center to learn how to articulate your humanist training when applying for jobs and internships
  • Build and leverage a robust network of alumni connections for future careers

What You’ll Learn:

  • Analyzing complex problems from multiple perspectives and developing plans to advocate for real-world issues through a humanist lens
  • Communicating with diverse public audiences in a range of media
  • Developing strong project management skills
  • Articulating your skills as a humanities scholar when applying to internships and jobs

Fellowship Program Format:

The HRW Fellowship consists of weekly meetings; developing an advocacy project for the National Humanities Alliance Annual Meeting and Humanities Advocacy Day; interviewing alumni; attending 2 extracurricular humanities events per semester; writing and revising multimedia projects; planning a humanities networking event for Reunion weekend.

Application Procedures

  • Attend the Harry Howard Lecture in early March ;
  • Write an 800-word blog post aimed at a general audience of non-experts connecting your own major(s) and interests and how the methods and expertise you draw from the humanities (history, philosophy, literary and cultural studies, art history, religious studies, language studies, etc.) are necessary to address global challenges;
  • Submit your application form by March 20, 2024.

Inquiries

Please contact contact Associate Director Dr. Elizabeth Meadows.