Jaclyn Le
Stanford senior JACLYN LE has been named a 2012 Newman Civic Fellow by Campus Compact, a national coalition of university presidents committed to educating students for civic and social responsibility. Le is among 162 undergraduates nationwide who are being recognized for their efforts to seek solutions to community issues.
The award is named for the late FRANK NEWMAN, co-founder of Campus Compact and founding member of the National Advisory Board of the Haas Center for Public Service.
Le, a political science major with a minor in education, plans to pursue a graduate degree in education law or education policy. Next year, she will work in a philanthropic foundation with support of the Haas Center’s Tom Ford Fellowship in Philanthropy, which grants a $30,000 stipend, health insurance and mentoring.
Le has spent has her Stanford career immersed in public service. She is a public service focus assistant at Branner Hall, an undergraduate residence with a public service theme. Most recently, Le won the Walk the Talk Service Leadership Award, given by Haas Center staff to seniors who have demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to public service work while at Stanford.
A native of Texas, Le held the Public Interest Law Fellowship in 2011, where she worked with Legal Aid of NorthWest Texas. During the summer of 2009, Le had an internship at Earning by Learning, a Dallas-based program that encourages children to read. While there, Le assisted with development and fundraising. In 2010, as an intern with Family Gateway of Dallas, she created a comprehensive map highlighting family homelessness and existing resources in the urban area.
“I chose to work in the nonprofit sector specifically in Dallas because I wanted to get a better sense of the issues and needs of communities who were living on the margins of society. After experiencing inequalities in urban education and working with growing populations of homeless families, I realized that policy and law are often seen as obstacles for under-resourced communities to overcome. However, I believe that there is potential in the political and legal systems to advance social justice, which is why I want to work for changes in the systems around low-income communities of color.”
Le also has participated in the Haas Center’s Public Service Scholars Program, which supports students’ efforts to write honors theses that are both academically rigorous and useful to community organizations or public interest constituencies. Le’s thesis explored the root causes of education inequality by focusing on the continuum of academic and social services in urban neighborhoods. As a member of the Public Service Leadership Program, she spent five quarters building a strong community of peer leaders and learning how to incorporate leadership skills into her role as a Branner focus assistant.
—BY JOY LEIGHTON
Haas Center for Public Service
