Students across the Project Pericles Consortium, with support from their Program Director, are invited to apply for the Purpose in Practice Student Fellowship for the Spring 2027 semester. Fellows will build capacity to reflect on, demonstrate, and express how their community-engaged and civic experiences are equipping them for purposeful lives in professional, community, and civic domains. Through this work, fellows will contribute reflections that Project Pericles will draw on to build a guide campuses can use to make the case for community-engaged civic learning.
Project Pericles will award up to 10 campuses $2,000 awards to support a student fellow and staff or faculty liaison’s participation in this program.
The Purpose in Practice Fellowship aims to:
Through this program, students will build their own career and purposeful life preparation skills, and gain a voice and leadership experience in the field.
As a Purpose in Practice Fellow, you will:
This is an educational fellowship that supports students’ leadership development and reflection. Fellows should expect to spend about 1-2 hours a week (roughly 25–30 hours across the semester), with more time around their peer workshop. This includes 3 virtual cohort sessions, monthly check-ins with their campus liaison, a conversation with an alum, and co-leading one peer workshop.
Each student fellow will have a campus liaison as the main point of contact between Project Pericles and your campus for the program. This can be a Project Pericles Program Director, career office staff member, campus staff member, or faculty member. We encourage liaisons to connect with faculty and staff from other departments. For example, a Program Director liaison may use program cost funds to invite a career office staff member to the workshop and debrief over lunch.
We expect liaisons to meet with their student fellow at least once a month to check in about their progress, provide support, and uplift any concerns or questions to Project Pericles (if needed). Liaisons may also help the fellow plan their peer workshop, such as booking a room or ordering food. Liaisons are invited to take part in their own parallel track of optional debrief sessions after student sessions.
Liaisons should expect to commit to 10-12 hours over the course of the fellowship. They will receive support from Project Pericles, including guidance for monthly check-ins and honoraria for their time. Being involved in this program places liaisons in a great position to keep this work going after the fellowship period ends.
Students should submit the application form themselves, but must attach a letter of support from their campus liaison (and sign-off from the Program Director if they are not the liaison.)
AI Use: Permitted for structure/wording assistance; majority must be original work and applicants must disclose if/where AI tools were used. Fine for organizing or tightening your writing. The experiences and reflections must be your own, and we ask applicants to tell us where they used AI tools. Disclosure will not count against you.
Deadline: All complete applications received before 11:59 PM ET on November 30, 2026 will be reviewed.
Undergraduate students from any Periclean institution are eligible to apply, with a campus liaison. Project Pericles will accept up to 3 applications from the same institution, but will award a maximum of one student fellowship per campus.
Campus awards of $2,000 will be allocated the following way:
Awards are made to the college or university, which disburses stipends according to its own policies. The liaison’s letter of support should confirm that the campus can disburse a student stipend and name a finance or grants contact. Liaisons are encouraged to check with their financial aid office so the stipend does not affect the student’s aid package.
We know some students, including international students, may face restrictions on receiving compensation. If you are interested in nominating a student who faces such restrictions on your campus, please feel free to suggest an alternative allocation of funding that will allow for their participation.
If staff are unable to receive honorarium from their campus, they may reallocate it to other areas such as professional development or other project support.
The first $1,000 will be distributed upon confirmation of participation at the beginning of the program, and the final $1,000 will be distributed once the fellow submits their final reflection.
Applications will be reviewed based on the following criteria:
The evaluators will prioritize including a diversity of perspectives in our selection, such as first-generation students, transfer students, or students from different majors and career interests.
