Compton offers flexible fellowship opportunity

Vassar will nominate two seniors who propose social justice projects

Sarah Siegal Life Editor

If you had a year, $35,000, and total freedom, what would you do? Each year a handful of graduating seniors nationwide answer that question to become Compton Mentor Fellows, a position that allows you to create your own social justice project and execute it over the course of a year with the help of a mentor.

The Compton Foundation looks for projects related to peace and conflict resolution, reproductive health, sustainable development and, in a recent addition, climate change. The Compton Foundation is really interested in “creative projects, engaging the community and addressing problems in new ways,” said Director of the Office for Fellowships and Pre-Professional Advising Lisa Kooperman.

Projects can be carried out anywhere in the world. In the past, Fellows have undertaken projects as diverse as facilitating collaboration among Seattle youth working on racial justice issues, a comprehensive ecological restoration of 540 acres in New Mexico and HIV/AIDS outreach in Namibia.

Dror Ladin ’05, now in his first year at Yale Law School, was selected as a fellow in 2005.

“I figured, why not shoot for something where I could do what I wanted? I think by the time people graduate, they’ve had an internship over the summer, and realize that when they graduate they’re at the bottom of the food chain,” Ladin said. “The Compton is totally different.”

Ladin created a project that involved running workshops on affirmative action in New York City high schools. His mentor in the program was Kimberle Crenshaw, a professor at the law schools of both the University of California at Los Angeles and Columbia University. Crenshaw also directs the African American Policy Forum (AAPF), a think tank in New York City that she co-founded with Vassar Professor of Political Science Luke Harris. Ladin and Crenshaw’s collaboration was so successful that after Ladin’s Compton Fellowship, he stayed on with the AAPF for a year, working against a proposed ban on affirmative action in Michigan.

While Ladin found a mentor while still at Vassar, students do not have to have a mentor in mind to begin the application process. According to Kooperman, the Compton Foundation has offered to facilitate the process of finding a mentor appropriate to applicants’ proposed projects.

As with other post-graduate fellowships, Vassar students do not have to face the application process alone. Kooperman encouraged anyone interested to speak with her, and soon. Students must submit their applications to the College by Feb. 4.

Once the applications are read, Vassar will nominate two applicants to go on to the national stage of the competition. At that point, students will automatically go to San Francisco for a weekend of interviews and networking with like-minded students from across the country before the final selection process is completed.

“It’s funny that more people don’t apply,” said Rebecca DiBennardo ’05, who spent her Compton year training young peer educators to inform Poughkeepsie youth about different aspects of gender and reproductive health.

DiBennardo now works as a Youth Program Associate at EngenderHealth, a non-profit dedicated to globally promoting reproductive health. Her job requires her to look at different grant and fellowship databases, and she said that she had never seen a post-graduate program nearly as workable or flexible as the Compton in all her research.

Kooperman, Ladin and DiBennardo all said that while the project should seem doable for someone with the applicant’s qualifications, students don’t have to have a major or even work experience that is directly related to their proposed projects. While DiBennardo’s project grew out of a summer internship, Ladin had never worked on affirmative action before.

“Everyone should apply to the Compton Fellowship,” said Ladin. “It’s really one of the only opportunities you’ll ever get to have someone say, ‘Here’s a bunch of money, go do your project and we’ll support you no matter what.’ I can’t overstate what a valuable and rare thing it is for someone to give you that kind of trust.”

For further information about the Compson Fellowship and instructions for applying, contact likooperman@vassar.edu or visit their Web site at comptonfellowships.org.