The Millennium Fellowship is a semester-long leadership development program that happens on your campus. The United Nations Academic Impact and MCN are here to elevate your leadership.
CONVENE
As part of a cohort of 8-20+ Millennium Fellows on your campus, convene to learn from and challenge each other. Millennium Fellows convene at least 8 times during the program.
CHALLENGE
Develop a plan of action for your sessions together. Meet to exchange best practices. And you could think bigger: organizing a campus-wide sustainability initiative or more.
CELEBRATE
When your Fellowship Campus meets the goals you made for yourselves and completed the Fellowship graduation requirements, you will earn a certificate of recognition from United Nations Academic Impact and Millennium Campus Network.
How the Program Works
Step 1: Apply (as soon as you can) to become a Millennium Fellow.
Note that each selected campus hub will typically have 8-20 Millennium Fellows (meaning you are strongly encouraged to invite your colleagues and classmates on your campus to apply as well). When you apply, you are asked to submit your Millennium Fellowship Project. Whatever your Project is, it must be time-bound - something you can make meaningful, measurable impact on during the Millennium Fellowship (August-December) and it must advance at least one Sustainable Development Goal and one UNAI principle. For some examples, it could be (but is not limited to):
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leading your campus organization (for example, a chapter of AIESEC, ENACTUS, UNICEF) that advances UN goals.
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student journalism - writing a series on the Sustainable Development Goals for your campus newspaper.
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running a social enterprise.
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innovative research that concretely advances UN goals.
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proposing a collective action as a Project - a campus-wide and/or community-wide initiative that advances UN goals. For inspiration, learn about Middlebury College's successful campus-wide action to become carbon neutral by 2016 (advancing SDG 13).
If you want to curate the Millennium Fellowship on your campus, in your fellowship application you can also apply to be one of two campus directors for your campus.
Step 2: Convene, Challenge, and Celebrate.
In Fellowship sessions (a minimum of 8 convenings between August and November), Millennium Fellows convene on their respective campuses. During these sessions, Campus Directors will lead you through the MCN Action Toolkit - an adaptive curriculum to help you reflect on core values, hone skills, and take informed action for UN goals. The curriculum is experiential - it is meant to be applied to help you grow as a leader in real-time as you manage your Project. As a campus hub, you will get exposed to a variety of elements during the Fellowship sessions as part of the the MCN Action Toolkit:
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cultivating core values (empathy, humility, inclusion).
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honing hard skills (how to write a budget, create SMART goals).
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honing soft skills (team management, pitching your Project).
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peer to peer feedback - sharing best practices to help each other overcome obstacles to your Project and exploring further opportunities for collaboration.
You will take on the challenge - engaging in peer to peer feedback to support Projects of your peers as you lead your own. As a campus hub, you may also choose to take on a collective action - for example, working with your administration to update a campus sustainability plan. If you have been an active Millennium Fellow and completed your Project, we will celebrate your work: you will earn a certificate recognizing successful completion of your Millennium Fellowship Project from United Nations Academic Impact and MCN. All of us at United Nations Academic Impact and MCN are also looking forward to hearing and sharing your stories of impact advancing the SDGs and UNAI principles in your communities - be sure to reflect and share videos/photos/articles of what you have learned and accomplished through this program.
Step 3: Join Our Alumni Community.
Join over 9,000+ MCN alumni to date and build a career with social impact. See here for some examples of what alumni have gone on to do. The best alumni stay involved:
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Continuing to share the long-term impact of this program on your work and career trajectory to inspire leaders younger than you to join.
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Building a robust campus hub to ensure future Millennium Fellows can participate, recruiting other students to become Millennium Fellows, and returning as guest speakers and mentors for future classes.
