The Leadership Fellows Program

The Leadership Development Fellowship. A year-long, cohor-based program. designing & implementing a change-oriented leadership project. Strengthening the graduate student community

About the Fellowship

The Leadership Fellows Program is a year-long, cohort-based program housed in the Graduate School Office of Well-Being (GROW). It was created to build a stronger and more connected graduate student community at MSU by supporting and providing space for graduate and professional student leaders to engage in change-oriented projects. Fellows aim to increase belonging and community within their colleges or specific populations of students, and their projects increase graduate student well-being, inclusion, and ultimately success.

This is a funded experience that provides each Fellow with a peer-network, mentorship, and professional development opportunities. An explicit goal of this program each year is to develop a diverse cohort that reaches across the silos that exist within graduate education. Fellows often serve for a second year, and their projects have made meaningful impacts within their Colleges and beyond.

Examples of our Fellows' projects:

  • Creating a Peer Mentoring Toolkit that led to both college-level changes to mentoring approaches and assessment, as well as changes at the unit level (i.e. one unit he worked with has moved to an entirely new system for assessing mentoring). 
  • Advocating for structural consistency at the college level. Two Fellows began reviewing their college’s by-laws, and learned that there were two designated committees that did not exist.  Thanks to their advocacy, their college now has a Student Advisory Committee and a Curriculum Committee.
  • Conducting department- and college-level needs assessment surveys to determine how student leaders, Graduate Student Organizations, and professional development programming can best support graduate students

Apply here by Friday, March 15, 2024.

Click this link to meet current Fellows, and see what kinds of work they are doing.

Click this link to view the program's history and see what our previous Fellows' have accomplished. 

Click this link to view Featured Fellows' Projects and see what has been done in the past.

Contact Information

Click here for a full desription of the Fellowship and a link to the application. We will begin accepting applications for 2024-25 in early spring semester of 2024.

Qualifications: Applicants must be registered for classes in a graduate or professional degree program at MSU and must have some prior leadership experience. You will have 1500 characters (about 250 words) to address the following questions, so you may want to prepare your responses beforehand:

  1. Why are you applying to be a Leadership Fellow and what skills and experiences do you hope to gain from this fellowship?
  2. If you could take action toward addressing one problem/challenge facing graduate students at MSU, what problem would you address? What action would you take and why?
  3. Tell us a story about a time when you saw a problem and took action to address it (whether the result was successful or not).
  4. Please briefly describe the other responsibilities you will have this coming year (assistantships, Fellowships, graduate student organizations, community service commitments, etc.). Do you believe you will have adequate time to devote to the duties of the Fellowship?

Questions regarding the application process and requests for accommodations for completing the application can be addressed to Dr. Megumi Moore at akehimeg@msu.edu.