Oxford College has announced the five recipients of the 2022 Tarbutton Leadership Fellowship.
Five Oxford College of Emory University students have been selected as Tarbutton Leadership Fellows for summer 2022. Established through a gift by Hugh Tarbutton Jr. 84Ox in memory of his father, Hugh Tarbutton Sr. 52Ox 55B, the program allows students to design a meaningful summer experience around their developing area(s) of interest. This activity takes place between their first and second years at Oxford.
This year’s fellows are: Doreen Okeh, Imaan Hasham, Chris Chen, Srija Potluri, and Ananya Singh. They join 13 previous Fellows who have been part of the program since its creation in 2019.
“The Tarbutton Leadership Fellows Program upholds one of Oxford’s core values: leadership in service to humanity,” said Doug Hicks, Dean of Oxford College. “My hope is that these Fellows will use their summer as a springboard to pursue their interests, follow their passions, and develop fresh perspectives on how to lead in an ever changing world.”
The selected students will receive a grant to help cover costs related to their summer plans; exclusive leadership workshops that include career planning, reflecting on personal values in and outside of the workplace, and coaching on how to create professional documents such as resumes and cover letters; and mentoring from a committee that helps each student consider and process their plans both before and during their summer project.
“This program is a distinctive part of Oxford’s commitment to helping student-leaders develop and thrive in the first two years of their college experience,” said Don Beaudette, Assistant Professor of Political Science. “The programming complements Oxford’s broader educational mission by encouraging fellows to reflect on how their personal values shape their practical summer plans and their approach to leadership more generally. This program has given me the opportunity to engage with some of our best and brightest first-year students from a wide variety of academic and social backgrounds.”
The 2022 Tarbutton Fellows are already active within the campus community and have shown the potential and desire to grow into leaders both at Oxford and beyond.
“This year's Fellows are thoughtful about not only the future of leadership but also how the last two years, in particular, have invited us to sometimes reconsider how we measure leadership,” said Ami Hernandez, Assistant Director of Career Services. “They are actively engaging the question of how they themselves want to be leaders and how they want to influence the ways others think about leadership.”