Dear colleagues:

I am delighted to announce the inaugural cohort for a new system-wide program called Public Voices Fellowship. The Public Voices Fellowship is a unique opportunity led by The OpEd Project, a national nonprofit social venture founded to increase the range of voices and quality of ideas shared publicly, and designed for tenure-system faculty. The program is part of a national initiative to help faculty amplify their expertise in ways that can contribute to public conversations about pressing issues. The 20 faculty in the initial cohort will attend four session at UIC during the 2019-20 academic year and will be paired with a journalism mentor who provides one-on-one editing and coaching, with the goal of publishing two op-ed pieces during the program.

We received more than 60 nominations from across our three universities for the program and the selection process was very competitive. Diversity of background and experiences as well as university representation were factors in the selection process.

Please join me in congratulating the following faculty who were selected for the 2019-20 program:

Chicago
• Jennifer Brier, Department of Gender & Women’s Studies
• Andy Clarno, Department of Sociology
• Lorena Garcia, Department of Sociology and Department of Latin American & Latino Studies
• Anantha Harijith, Department of Pediatrics – Chicago
• Phoenix Matthews, Department of Health Systems Science
• Henrika McCoy, Jane Addams College of Social Work
• Rachel Havrelock, Department of English
• Susan Poser, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

Springfield
• Anne-Marie Hanson, Department of Environmental Studies
• Kathy Novak, Department of Communication
• Sibel Oktay, Department of Political Science
• Adriana Piatti-Crocker, Department of Political Science

Urbana-Champaign
• Ruth Nicole Brown, Department of Gender & Women’s Studies
• Jane Desmond, Department of Anthropology
• Julie Dowling, Department of Latina/Latino Studies
• Cara Finnegan, Department of Communication
• Amy Wagoner Johnson, Department of Mechanical Science & Engineering
• Rini Bhattacharya Mehta, Program in Comparative & World Literature
• Ruby Mendenhall, Department of Sociology
• Gilberto Rosas, Department of Anthropology

My thanks to all who participated in the process, either as nominators or as candidates. We are fortunate to be part of a community with so many dedicated faculty who are interested in furthering their skills as well as making their voices heard. My office plans to host the Public Voices Fellowship program annually, and I strongly encourage the many talented individuals who were not selected this year to apply again in the future.

Sincerely,

Barbara J. Wilson
Executive Vice President & Vice President for Academic Affairs