This announcement originally appeared on the Social Impact Lab’s website.
Northeastern University’s Social Impact Lab (SIL) is thrilled to announce our inaugural Global Community Engagement Fellow, Sam Vaghar, Co-founder and Executive Director of Millennium Campus Network (MCN). Sam is also a Gleitsman Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and serves on several Advisory Boards, including advising the Executive Director of UN Women. Funding for the Global Community Engagement Fellow was provided by Northeastern’s Young Global Leaders.
Under Sam’s leadership, MCN has established the global Millennium Fellowship in collaboration with the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI). The program offers training, connections, and credentials for undergraduates advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, are a shared blueprint for pursuing peace and prosperity for people and the planet by integrating strategies to end poverty, improve health and education, reduce inequality, spur economic growth, tackle climate change, and preserve our oceans and forests. The Millennium Fellowship has seen enormous growth since its launch in 2013, with tens of thousands of applicants each year from campuses across the globe.
As the SIL Global Community Engagement Fellow, Sam will engage applicants of the Millennium Fellowship at Northeastern and be available for consultations with faculty and staff engaged in global education initiatives (especially those related to the SDGs and community-based experiential learning), talks and panels, and conversations with students. He will also collaborate with SIL and the Human Services team to review strategies for preparing students for global engagement as learners and practitioners, integrate the SDGs into their Dialogues of Civilization, and develop a plan to recruit grassroots leaders working on the SDGs outside the U.S. as future SIL Global Community Engagement Fellows.
MCN has a long history with Northeastern University, which hosted the annual Millennium Campus Conference in 2012 and 2013. Northeastern has had a cohort of Millennium Fellows since the program’s launch. Rebecca Riccio, SIL’s founder and Juffali Family Director, is a member of MCN’s Global Education Council and has advised MCN on its global curriculum.
Students may now apply for the Fall 2021 Millennium Fellowship. Applications will be accepted through April, but early submission is strongly encouraged.