Public Voices Fellowship
Northwestern University is partnering with OpEd Project to present the Public Voices Thought Leadership Fellowship Program. This year-long program provides a select group of scholars across all disciplines with the resources, support and skills needed in order to dramatically increase their visibility and influence as thought leaders in academia and the world at large. Congratulations to the 2013 Fellows!
Karen Alter – Political Science, WeinbergYarrow Axford – Earth & Planetary Sciences, Weinberg
Sheila Bedi – Law School
Nicola Beisel – Sociology, Weinberg
Juan Caicedo – Transplant Surgery, Feinberg
Marie Crandall – Trauma & Critical Care, Feinberg
Sofia Garcia – Medical Social Sciences, Feinberg
Mita Sanghavi Goel – General Internal Medicine, Feinberg
Eszter Hargittai – Communication Studies, School of Communication
Jessica Kiley – Obstetrics & Gynecology, Feinberg
June McKoy – Geriatrics, Feinberg
Nicholas Pearce – Management & Organizations, Kellogg
Miriam Petty – Radio, TV & Film, School of Communication
Galya Ruffer – Political Science, Weinberg
Regina Schwartz – English, Weinberg
Malika Shah – Pediatrics, Feinberg
Melissa Simon – Obstetrics & Gynecology, Feinberg
Juliet Sorensen – Law School
Linda Teplin – Psychiatry & Behavioral Science, Feinberg
Paloma Toledo – Anesthesiology, Feinberg
2013-2014 Program
Over the course of the 2013-2014 academic year, the Faculty Fellows will participate in:
1) Quarterly Thought Leadership Seminars designed to expand thinking and amplify expertise. One or more of these seminars will feature conversations (in person or via teleconference) with top media thought leaders and gatekeepers including the New York Times, CNN, and Wikipedia, and brief media coaching for video. In addition, a short video may be created to highlight the participants’ successes, and to showcase them as expert sources for future media. Visit the 2012 Program page to see an example of this video.
Fellows must commit to attending all four gathering dates. All gatherings will take place in Hardin Hall, located in the basement level of the Rebecca Crown Center at 633 Clark Street, Evanston, IL. The schedule for the 2013-14 Quarterly Seminars is as follows:
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Thursday, October 31 (9am - 4pm) & Friday, November 1 (9am - 2pm) KNOWLEDGE. What do we know, why does it matter, and how can we use it? In the first 1/2 day convening we use games, high-stakes scenarios and live experiments to explore the concepts of expertise and credibility, to examine the elements of powerful argument and persuasion (including evidence, how to address opposition and building consensus), and to challenge fellows to think in new and bigger ways about what they know and why it matters. We also reflect on the obligation that comes with knowledge. Friday, January 24, 2014 (9am - 4pm) CONNECTION. How can we speed the pace of cross-pollination, and thereby develop better ideas that increase our value and relevance in the world? In the second convening we connect the dots between disparate ideas, fields, geographies, and time periods. We play games that explore the source of truly innovative thinking (where do good ideas come from?) and test our ideas of timing and timeliness. We discover unlikely yet authentic connections across people, time and space - and new ways in which our knowledge intersects with public events. Friday, March 28, 2014 (9am - 4pm) CONTAGION. Why do some ideas travel farther and faster than others? What are the mechanisms and hallmarks of contagious thinking? The third convening explores the underpinnings and philosophical implications of a rapidly changing media landscape - in which ideas rise and spread in radically new ways. We work with multi-media platforms including TV/video, public speaking, TED and TED Ed, social media, and much more. We also consider how teaching platforms can scale ideas across generations. Friday, May 9, 2014 (9am - 4pm) LEGACY. Why do we do what we do? And what is the enduring impact we wish to leave behind? In the fourth convening we use elemental questions to explore our individual ideas around purpose and legacy with a telescopic lens. What impact can we leave behind not simply on the day we die, but hundreds of years into the future, through our ideas? Fellows leave with a physical record of their motivations and accomplishments and with blueprints for the future. Following will be a reception during which we will celebrate each other's accomplishments throughout the year. |
3) Media Gatekeeper calls Each month we will hold in-person or call‐in conversations with top media gatekeepers from outlets such as: The New York Times (how to become an expert source to a journalist); CNN (how scholars get booked on TV); Wikipedia (how to contribute to and shape encyclopedic knowledge online); MSNBC (how academics can become major media commentators); and possibly with organizers or gatekeepers from major thought leadership conferences such as TED, Davos or PopTech. These calls also serve to foster cross-pollination of scholars across disciplines and across universities.
4) Ongoing, High-Level Mentoring Finally, throughout the program year and for one year beyond, the Public Voices Thought Leadership Fellows will have access to the OpEd Project’s national network of Mentor-Editors: eighty extremely high‐level media thought leaders (among them: Pulitzer Prize winners, genius grant winners, former New York Times editorial board members, war correspondents, and nationally syndicated columnists) who each volunteer to mentor one Fellow a month. Fellows can use this resource any time they would like individual feedback on an idea or argument they are advancing in the form of an op‐ed—as often as they like and as many times as they like throughout the program year and one year beyond.
See highlights of the 2012 Program.
Program Application
The application period for the 2013-2014 Public Voices Fellowship Program has now closed. Please check back often for news on whether the Program will be offered again next year. If you have any questions, please contact Marianna Kepka, Assistant Provost for Academic Administration, at m-kepka@northwestern.edu or 847/491-8548.
Public Voices at Other Universities
Princeton University: Public Voices Fellowship Project
Yale University: Yale News, Yale Daily News
More About the Op-Ed Project
The OpEd Project is a social venture founded to increase the range of voices and quality of ideas we hear in the world, starting with more women. We envision a world where the best ideas—regardless of where or whom they come from—will have a chance to be heard and to shape society and the world. We have successfully piloted programs to advance monitory and women’s voices with major organizations and universities nation-wide, with stunning results: nearly 5,000 women and men have come through The OpEd Project, and have taken through leadership positions (op-eds and much more) in virtually every major media outlet, conservatively reaching hundreds of millions of readers. As a direct result participants have gone on to speak on national TV and radio, advance their research and teaching careers, earn book contracts (or generate larger/more popular audiences for existing academic books), consult on national policy issues, take new leadership roles at their institutions, brief Congress, and become nationally recognized for their ideas.
