Dwight Hall Summer Fellowship Continues Supporting Student Community Service Projects

The Dwight Hall Summer Fellowship is an application-based funding program dedicated to “establishing an environment for students to create social change through full-time, paid engagement in coordination with community partners,” according to the Summer Fellowship’s webpage. Fellows work with community organizations of their choosing in a variety of fields to serve others, gain professional experience, and learn about different common-good careers. This year, Dwight Hall is supporting fellows in executing a socially impactful project, internship, or research proposal based in the U.S. 

The fellowship began in the summer of 1968 “for community-engaged students who need the time and resources to enact a socially good idea.” Mark Fopeano, Dwight Hall’s Director of Programming and Evaluation, stated that the type of service the fellowship seeks to support is not prescriptive or imposing but rather aims to “be a part of the community and listen first to the needs of others.” Fopeano explained that, beyond the professional experience and exposure to complex problem-solving techniques students receive from the fellowship, the work is designed to be mutually beneficial for both the student and the organization they work with. 

In its early years, the fellowship matched students with organizations with which Dwight Hall already partnered, following an internship model. Summer Fellows now apply with their own host organization in mind. Dwight Hall looks favorably upon projects in New Haven as well as projects located in a student’s hometown or in a place where they plan to live long-term. “We are aware that there are a lot of students who know they will go back home [over the summer or after graduation] and want to understand how they can [serve their community],” Fopeano said. “Dwight Hall will always have several students who are in New Haven, and we also want to support communities where people envision themselves after graduation,” Fopeano shared. 

Summer Fellowship offerings are made possible through the generous support of Dwight Hall’s funding partners, including the Yale Club of New Haven, which has supported the program for decades; the Yale Alumni Nonprofit Alliance, which since 2017 has supported YANA–Dwight Hall Summer Fellows working domestically who are eligible for financial aid but no longer eligible for Yale’s Summer Experience Award; and the Dr. Peter R. Muehrer ’82 Fund, which since 2018 has funded students working in the field of community mental health. Additional funding is provided by generous alumni and by the Dwight Hall Summer Fellows Fund. 

In its 59th year in 2026, the program will underwrite community engagement experiences for a total of 28 students. The Summer Fellowship is providing full funding for 11 fellows and supplemental support for 17 fellows, five of whom are working with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).  

The Dwight Hall Summer Fellowship program’s partnership with the UNDP matches fellows to teams within the Crisis Bureau’s Governance, Rule of Law, and Peacebuilding Hub. The United Nations Development Programme is the knowledge frontier organization for sustainable development in the United Nations Development System and serves as the integrator for collective action to realize the Sustainable Development Goals. Fellows spend two months working from the United Nations headquarters or remotely on peacebuilding research, events, social media, and policy projects. 

“There is a huge range of work that students take on. The typical fields we see are related to legal services, typically in a public defense setting, advocacy with established organizations and the intersection of health and health education,” Fopeano explained. Because of the wide range of work students may undertake, Dwight Hall requires students to have a detailed project plan with set deliverables, as well as the direction and expertise provided by a supervisor within a preexisting organization. Beyond that, the most important aspect of a Summer Fellowship application is a student’s relationship to the cause they are seeking to work on. Students who are regularly involved in a social justice cause and want to deepen their commitment to that cause over the summer are particularly strong applicants. 

Throughout the summer, Dwight Hall conducts regular check-ins with Summer Fellows, who submit weekly reflections to ensure they have the support they need and have been able to complete their work. Dwight Hall places particularly strong emphasis on ensuring that students approach their community service work with a listening posture, rather than entering a community and assigning solutions to problems they may not fully understand. “We want to set people up for reflection because that will be the precursor to a mutually beneficial experience,” Fopeano said. The program is designed to follow a conscientious model of service that focuses on listening rather than empowering students to impose their views on the communities they are serving. 

The Summer Fellowship is part of an effort to make common-good careers accessible to students on financial aid. “There is a barrier to entry for people getting into social services or public good work. That barrier is particularly high [if you are an First-generation/Low-Income (FGLI) student],” Fopeano said. Yale University recently announced changes to its summer grant policies by consolidating the Summer Experience Award and the International Summer Award — grants students previously used for internships and study abroad opportunities — into a single grant, the Summer Experience Grant (SEG). With this change, students seeking to pursue internships with community service organizations will have to choose between using their SEG for an internship or for studying abroad, making the Dwight Hall Summer Fellowship particularly important going forward. 

As Yale students plan their careers, the Dwight Hall Summer Fellowship allows for an in-depth exploration of a wide range of causes someone may want to work on post-graduation. Learn more about the Summer Fellows application here and reach out to mark.fopeano@yale.edu with any questions. 

Dwight Hall Summer Fellows – Full Funding 

Dwight Hall Summer Fellows – Supplemental Funding 

This program advances the Grow pillar of Dwight Hall’s Engage, Grow, and Advance program delivery model by developing students’ intellectual, moral, civic, and creative capacities to the fullest with experiential learning and fellowships.