Community Fellow Program
What is the Community Fellow Program?
The Community Fellow (CF) Program is an experiential learning program that allows public or nonprofit organizations of the Walla Walla Valley region to apply for the opportunity to create an unpaid, part-time fellowship addressing some of the area’s social, economic and cultural challenges. These fellowships are then shared with second-, third- and fourth-year Whitman students so they may apply to become a ‘Fellow’ of that organization.
Community Fellows meet leaders of nonprofit or public Walla Walla Valley organizations, receive professional mentoring including targeted career development guidance, and the opportunity to collaborate broadly addressing important issues in southeastern Washington from environmental stresses to social equity.
Whitman’s Community Fellow program is primarily funded by the Donald and Virginia Sherwood Internship Endowment, which was established in 2012 thanks to a grant from the Sherwood Trust.
Fellowship Requirements
Fellows are paid by Whitman College and expected to work 6–10 hours per week for a total of 160–180 hours for the academic year. Fellowships created by organizations must be for an academic year (late September–May) and allow the fellow to work on community facing projects that address social, economic, or cultural challenges. Fellowships must offer professional development and growth through training, onboarding, and evaluation. Fellowships created for consideration must be open to all students and not be discriminative based on race, color, religion, gender, sexuality, national origin, disability, or age. Whitman College does not sign internship affiliation agreements for this program.
Organization Eligibility
To be approved for the program, organizations must be public agencies or nonprofit organizations (preference given to 501(c) nonprofits) and must be based in the Walla Walla Valley region. No religious congregations, partisan-affiliated organizations or for-profit organizations are eligible for this program. Organizations that have been funded for the last two consecutive years (2021–2022 and 2022–2023) are not eligible for this application cycle.
Requirements for Selected Organizations
Organizations selected to be a Community Fellow Partner (CF Partner) must have a representative available to attend:
- an Orientation meeting to learn additional information about the program and final instructions about writing fellowship descriptions
- a Fellows Fair information session to promote thsee fellowships to interested students
- an official Fellows Launch event for CF Partners and their Student Fellows to kick off the program
Dates for these meeting and event will be shared with selected organizations. CF partners will interview applicants and then select their top candidates of choice for Fellows. The Career and Community Engagement Center will not participate in the initial interview and selection process but presides over final placement of the Fellow.
Applications for the 2023–2024 Community Fellow Partners are now open. Request an application using this google form. The deadline for applications is July 14th at 5 pm. For further questions contact Abby Juhasz, Director for Community Engagement at juhasza@whitman.edu.
