Institute for Citizens and Scholars – Advancing Fellowship Since 1945

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MEETING CRITICAL NEEDS

Engaging youth on today's pressing challenges

CONVENING UNLIKELY ALLIANCES

Partnerships and networks that bridge divides

BUILDING NETWORKS

Funders, experts, thought leaders across civic learning

SUPPORTING BETTER POLICY

Symposia and seminars to inform leaders

DRAWING ON DIVERSE EXPERTISE

An experienced, outcomes-oriented team

PREPARING LEADERS

75 years, 16 Nobel Laureates, 27,000 Fellows and counting

BUILDING NEW FIELDS

Systems to ensure sustained progress

BUILDING NEW FIELDS

Systems to ensure sustained progress

MEETING CRITICAL NEEDS

Engaging youth on today's pressing challenges

CONVENING UNLIKELY ALLIANCES

Partnerships and networks that bridge divides

BUILDING NETWORKS

Funders, experts, thought leaders across civic learning

SUPPORTING BETTER POLICY

Symposia and seminars to inform leaders

DRAWING ON DIVERSE EXPERTISE

An experienced, outcomes-oriented team

PREPARING LEADERS

75 years, 16 Nobel Laureates, 27,000 Fellows and counting

PREPARING LEADERS

75 years, 16 Nobel Laureates, 27,000 Fellows and counting

BUILDING NEW FIELDS

Systems to ensure sustained progress

MEETING CRITICAL NEEDS

Engaging youth on today's pressing challenges

CONVENING UNLIKELY ALLIANCES

Partnerships and networks that bridge divides

BUILDING NETWORKS

Funders, experts, thought leaders across civic learning

SUPPORTING BETTER POLICY

Symposia and seminars to inform leaders

DRAWING ON DIVERSE EXPERTISE

An experienced, outcomes-oriented team

Our future depends on an informed, productively engaged, and hopeful citizenry. That’s what we’re working towards at the Institute for Citizens & Scholars.

Citizens

Citizens demonstrate the ancient concepts of civic virtue and civic spirit, and work for the common good.

Scholars

Scholars are committed to acquiring, enriching, and transmitting knowledge.

Advancing Fellowship since 1945

Citizens & Scholars has been bringing people together as a collective force for progress on the nation’s biggest challenges since 1945.

Our 27,000 Fellows include

Our Fellows have contributed to creating a better educated, more thoughtful, and more inclusive America.

Citizens & Scholars is rebuilding how we develop citizens in our country

Citizens & Scholars is building on its 75-year history to meet today’s challenges with new efforts and solutions.

“The Civic Spring Project is an opportunity for young people to...create a path forward for their communities, and not incidentally...practice and strengthen their own leadership and engagement skills.”

“Citizens & Scholars has supported outstanding scholars...it has made a huge difference to individuals who collectively have made a positive difference to their communities.”

“The Woodrow Wilson was a very prestigious fellowship...To have that imprint on the beginning of women’s studies helped those of us who were trying to make our way into the profession, to be taken seriously as scholars. [It signaled] that this was a legitimate enterprise.”

the team

Citizens & Scholars leadership and staff bring both for-profit and nonprofit experience, and have led start-up organizations as well as major, established institutions. In addition, the Citizens & Scholars Board of Trustees comprises leaders in higher education, business, government, the nonprofit sector, social entrepreneurship, public affairs, biotech, philanthropy, law, and finance.

Together we’re working on fresh solutions to meet urgent education needs.

We are also looking to hire a Senior Program Officer and a Civic Learning Lead.

About our new name

This new identity reflects the organization’s twin commitments: to strengthen American education and to rebuild a flourishing civil society. Citizens & Scholars honors the legacy of the organization, as well as its new directions. It signals our aim to engage leaders and groups from various sectors as a lever for progress on the nation’s biggest education challenges. It reflects our commitment to inclusion, bridge-building, and collaboration.

History & Mission

Citizens & Scholars has its roots in the Woodrow Wilson Fellowships founded at Princeton University in 1945. The new name chosen in 2020 signifies a new chapter for us.

engage with us

As we start this new chapter at Citizens & Scholars, we need you to join us. Whether by partnering with us, applying for Fellowship opportunities, sharing our new mission, or supporting a pilot program—you are crucial to this effort.