Congratulations to Rachel McMillian, assistant professor of Curriculum and Instruction, who has been awarded an OpEd Project Public Voices Fellowship in the first year that assistant professors were eligible to apply.
"I am so excited to have been selected for this year's Public Voices Fellowship so that I might increase the accessibility of my scholarship," said McMillian. "As a storyteller, I find it to be extremely important ‘how’ we tell stories, but I also find it extremely important ‘where’ we tell stories―especially the stories of those who have experienced incarceration, the stories of Black youth, and Black communities.
"My hope is that this fellowship will help me create partnerships in the national media so that my research can be accessed by my community outside of academia, by the very people who are sharing their stories with me, and by those who are yet waiting to see their freedom from incarceration," said McMillian.
According to the OpEd Project's website:
The Public Voices Fellowship program is intended for individuals and institutions committed to bigger, long-term results and enduring social change. The goal of this program is to transform a cadre of exceptional thinkers (with emphasis on underrepresented voices, including women) into public intellectuals whose knowledge and influence transcends industries and institutions, to shape the important public conversations of our day.
Participants convene in person for day-long seminar events throughout the fellowship and are matched with Journalist Mentors, who work with them for the duration of the fellowship to encourage, coach, edit and support participants in achieving concrete results (op-eds and much more). Fellows receive weekly customized email prompts, and join monthly calls with media thought leaders. By partnering with us in this way, institutions typically see value in these ways: (1) increased visibility/prestige; (2) enhanced satisfaction and retention of talent, especially underrepresented (including female) talent; (3) more innovation, driven by intentional cross-pollination across colleagues and disciplines. Institutions strengthen their internal talent pool, increase their institution’s public presence through the voices of their own leadership and community, and help change the demographics of voice in the world.
