Stanford in Government Fellowships

Stanford in Government (SIG), established in 1963, is a non-partisan, student-run organization that promotes political awareness and involvement among the Stanford community. As one of Stanford's largest and oldest student organizations, SIG seeks to accomplish this mission by organizing a variety of civic education, community involvement, and public service opportunities for the student body.

Members arrange a variety of educational events including lectures, panel discussions, weekly luncheons with visiting journalists, and the annual "Big Speaker" event. Last year's Big Speaker was John Edwards, the former Senator and Democratic Vice Presidential nominee in 2004. Another branch of SIG--its community service arm--seeks to reach beyond the student body and into East Palo Alto. This year, members will be piloting a civic education class for fourth graders in East Palo Alto Charter School and will be working with the EPA Community Legal Services Clinic to put together a pamphlet detailing the rights of minors, specifically when stopped by the police.

SIG also provides highly qualified students with meaningful exposure to the public policy process through a number of paid summer fellowships. These are offered in government and nonprofit agencies locally, in the Bay Area and Sacramento, as well as in Washington D.C. and internationally. Fellowships require a commitment of at least 9 weeks of fulltime work during the summer and supply students with stipends of $4,000. Each year there are 30-34 recipients, with preference to freshmen, sophomores and juniors. Applications are due by NOON on Wednesday, February 6, 2008.

For a listing of SIG Fellows from past years, go to Past Fellows Archive, then click on the year and "Stanford in Government." To find out more about previous fellows and what they have said about their fellowship experiences, read Reflections from the Fellows.

Questions? Contact the SIG Chair, Rebecca Jacobs, at rajacobs@stanford.edu.
For a SIG fellowship application, go to http://sig.stanford.edu or http://sig.stanford.edu/fellowships/appinfo.htm or e-mail the Vice-Chairs of Fellowships, Sara Heaps at sebheaps@stanford.edu and Julia Greenberg at juliag@stanford.edu.