ANN ARBOR—It’s not unusual for students committed to serving the public to discover that salaries in community and nonprofit agencies fall short of their needs. The University of Michigan School of Information is taking steps through its new Community Information Fellows Program to ensure that students who seek public interest jobs will have the financial means to fulfill their goals.

School of Information students will receive $5,000 stipends after they graduate and begin working in public interest jobs. Fellows will receive the $5,000 stipends each year for five years, in addition to whatever salary they draw from their jobs. Fellows will also be invited to an annual workshop, to share ideas and experiences. The program is supported by the Alliance for Community Technology, a strategic partnership between the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the School of Information.

“The overall effect of the fellowship program will be to increase the supply of information professionals who pursue public interest work,” says Prof. Paul Resnick, who directs the Community Information Fellows Program. “It will encourage people who are already committed to working for the public good to enter graduate school so they can acquire information skills that will make them more effective in their work.”

If selected as Community Information Fellows prior to attending SI, students can be confident that the future stipend will help repay any loans that they may take out to pay for their education, for example. “The program will also encourage students who have already enrolled at SI to explore public interest career options, even if they had not originally planned such a career when they started graduate school,” Resnick adds.

Applicants
The application deadline is
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School of InformationAlliance for Community TechnologyPaul Resnick