NSU student honored as Newman Civic Fellow

(Tahlequah, Oklahoma) Northeastern State University graduate student Alisha Fletcher is one of 262 students selected for the 2019-2020 cohort of Newman Civic Fellows by Campus Connect, a Boston-based non-profit organization working to advance the public purposes of higher education.

Fletcher graduated from NSU in May 2018 with a bachelors degree in political science and is working on a masters degree in American Studies. She has served as an intern for the City of Tahlequah and has volunteered throughout the community. Fletcher has also worked on political campaigns.

I hope to gain insight from other students on how they have created change within their campuses and communities and see what I can bring back to NSU and Tahlequah, she said. It especially means a lot for me to have received this honor because I am a low income, first-generation student. I hope to be able to advocate for students like me through this experience.

The Newman Civic Fellowship, named for Campus Compact co-founder Frank Newman, is a one-year experience emphasizingpersonal, professional and civic growth for students who have demonstrated a capacity for leadership and an investment in solving public problems. Through the fellowship, Campus Compact provides a variety of learning and networking opportunities, including a national conference of Newman Civic Fellows in partnership with the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. The fellowship also provides fellows with access to apply for exclusive scholarship and post-graduate opportunities.

We are proud to recognize each of these extraordinary student leaders and thrilled to have the opportunity to engage with them, said Campus Compact President Andrew Seligsohn. The stories of this year's Newman Civic Fellows make clear that they are committed to finding solutions to pressing problems in their communities and beyond. That is what Campus Compact is about, and it's what our country and our world desperately need.

About Campus Compact:

Campus Compact is a national coalition of over 1,000 colleges and universities committed to the public purposes of higher education. Campus Compact supports institutions in fulfilling their public purposes by deepening their ability to improve community life and to educate students for civic and social responsibility. As the largest national higher education association dedicated solely to campus-based civic engagement, we provide professional development to administrators and faculty to enable them to engage effectively, facilitate national partnerships connecting campuses with key issues in their local communities, build pilot programs to test and refine promising models in engaged teaching and scholarship, celebrate and cultivate student civic leadership, and convene higher education institutions and partners beyond higher education to share knowledge and develop collective capacity