The leadership and scholarship program will launch for first-year students in the Fall 2027 semester.
Beginning with the Fall 2027 semester, Capital University will launch its Presidential Leadership Fellows program. The Presidential Leadership Fellows program is a four-year program that provides cohorts of students with scholarships, leadership development opportunities, and a community created for these high-achieving students.
According to an article on Capital University’s website, Stephanie Sanders, who serves as the vice president for Strategic Enrollment Management and Marketing, was quoted as saying of the new program, “Students and families are telling us they want an education that connects what happens in the classroom to what comes next, and they want to be known. The Presidential Leadership Fellows is both. It is a scholarship, a community, and a direct line to Capital’s president and to Columbus. And it gives high-achieving students one more compelling reason to choose Capital.”
Each year, there will be a new cohort of up to 36 first-year Presidential Leadership Fellows. These students will receive a renewable $4,000 scholarship and will become immersed in leadership and professional and career development. The students will live in the Presidential Leadership Fellows community in Cotterman Hall alongside upper-level student mentors.
Dr. Damon Brown, the vice president for Student Experience, said, “The Fellows community in Cotterman Hall is where this program will come to life day to day. First-year Fellows will live and learn with residential assistant mentors and an additional upper-class peer mentor who have walked the same path, and by their junior and senior years they will be leading that community themselves. That is how leadership takes root.”
Presidential Leadership Fellows will participate in individual meetings with Capital University President Jared R. Tice, Ed.D. twice per semester. They will also participate together as a community in development experiences with industry, civic, and nonprofit leaders around Columbus. Together, the cohort will take part in university traditions like the Gerhold Lecture Series in the Humanities, Christmas Festival, and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Learning.
Tice said, “Leadership is learned in relationship, in community, and in a real place. The Presidential Leadership Fellows gives our most promising first-year students four years with the president, with the leaders of this city, and with each other. I will know every Fellow by name, meet with each of them, and watch them grow from students learning to lead into mentors helping others do the same. There is no better expression of what Capital Rising means than that.”
At the end of their first year in the program, the students will participate in a capstone in Chicago with alumni and partner organizations, and will present their learnings in a showcase for President Tice and the incoming cohort of Presidential Leadership Fellows.
In their subsequent years as a Presidential Leadership Fellow, students will become mentors to the new Fellows, complete internships, help select the next cohort of students, and complete leadership experiences.
In order to become a Presidential Leadership Fellow, students must have a 3.5 grade point average or higher in high school, must live on campus, and must be entering Capital University as a first-year student. Students who are eligible to apply for the fellowship program will be notified through their admissions portal. They will complete an application, and will be invited to interview during the university’s spring scholarship competition in February 2027. The inaugural cohort will be named and notified in March 2027.
For more information about Capital University, visit the school’s website.