Black Student Leadership Fellowship

Black Student Leadership Fellowship

The Black Student Leadership Fellowship was a year-long program combining a retreat, ongoing scholarly & professional development, mentorship, and a summer internship in a local organization for the purposes of:

• Creating a cohesive and strong body of student leaders
• Enhancing personal growth & capacity to create change
• Developing supportive relationships with community mentors
• Networking among aspiring student leaders
• Participating in a paid fellowship with an organization & leader of students’ choice

The fellowship was designed by and supported through BASE (the Black Achievement, Success, and Engagement Initiative). BASE offers dynamic academic and co-curricular programs to eradicate barriers to the achievement, success, and engagement of Black students at USF.  The Black Leadership Fellowship initiative was a new and critical effort to catapult Black students to the next level of their careers through networking, mentorship & leadership skill development.  Through the year-long fellowship, ten sophomore student leaders networked, sustained, & further developed their leadership skills in a two-day leadership retreat and a series of workshops on self-reflection, personal growth, change, & building leadership capacity. 

The fellowship curriculum on leadership, combined with the direct practical experience of community engagement, built Black students’ capacities to implement a sustainable praxis that combines social analysis and action. Students learned explicitly through practices informed by Ignatian spirituality, guiding them to determine the intersections of their own faith traditions, the urgent social issues and needs of our community, and their individual gifts and talents.

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