Viewpoints Fellowship (formerly MLTI)

Are you a student leader who wants to lead better? Strong student leaders don’t avoid hard conversations. They lead them.

The Viewpoints Fellowship is a paid, year-long fellowship for student leaders who want stronger teams, better conversations, and real impact. Fellows build practical skills for navigating disagreement with curiousity, addressing conflict, and creating space for honest dialogue. Viewpoints participants leave with tools you can use right away in student organizations, fraternities and sororities, and campus communities.

The nine-month stipended fellowship program builds campus-based cohorts of student leaders from different universities, teaches an interdisciplinary method of approaching difference with curiosity, and empowers its fellows to create and implement programming promoting this approach in their own communities.

Fellowship Eligibility Requirements

Ideal candidates for the fellowship program are CURRENT freshmen, sophomores or juniors who will be on campus for the 2026-27 academic year.

If you’re responsible (whether formally or informally) for people, decisions, or culture in a student organization, this fellowship was built for you.

What You’ll Get

  • Training in navigating difficult conversations and conflict, civil discourse, and building a stronger organization
  • One-on-one mentorship
  • Build your resume and earn a LinkedIn Certification in Curious Disagreement
  • A national network of student leaders
  • $1,000 stipend + all-expenses-paid retreat (September 4-6, 2026)

What You’ll Do

  • Develop and lead custom programming for your student organization around curious disagreement
  • Work with leaders across your campus to design and implement a capstone
  • Cultivate your own dialogue and leadership skills through workshops, retreats, and mentorship

Fellows will receive a $1,000 stipend for their participation, and may return as trainers the following year.

Learn more here: 2026-2027 FAQ for Fellows

Submission Deadline: March 30th, 2026

Students are invited to apply for the fellowship before the application deadline of March 30. Fellows will be notified of their selection in April.

Apply HERE (tinyurl.com/vpf2026)  and/or email hzaken@elon.edu with your questions.

About the Viewpoints Fellowship

The fellowship focuses on three questions
  1. Why is it hard to have a curious approach to difference and disagreement?
  2. Why is it worthwhile and important nonetheless?
  3. How can we cultivate such an approach in student organizations and on campus?

The program begins with an all-expenses-paid retreat in the fall, led by fellow students and featuring workshops, mentorship, opportunities for reflection and individual growth, and collaborative activities focused on constructive disagreement, emotional resilience, tools for community building, narrative storytelling, networking opportunities, and more.

After the retreat, fellows will identify an aspect of the training that would benefit their student organization. With a student mentor, they will then design and lead a custom program, tailored to their organization. For instance, a newspaper editor may choose to design a workshop for her interviews team, inspired by the fellowship module on active listening and intentional questioning, to help the team produce stronger interviews and engage subjects from a wider range of perspectives. Similarly, a fraternity leader may be inspired by a workshop on narrative storytelling to create a storytelling evening event for his fraternity to strengthen their understanding of each other.

The cohort will then participate in a winter retreat, where they will reflect on their projects, learn from each other, and begin to design campus-based capstone projects to engage the broader community in their learning. Institute mentors will work with students to identify an ambitious project, such as a student conference or curricular supplement, and work with them as well as key campus stakeholders to make it a reality in the spring.

About The Institute for Multipartisan Education:

Founded by Harvard senior Shira Hoffer, the Institute for Multipartisan Education is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to sustainably increasing and improving capacity for curious approaches to difference and disagreement in educational settings. We believe that curiosity is the antidote to polarization, especially in educational institutions, and that it is constrained by well-intentioned layers of protection from challenging ideas. With consulting and resource development services, and our flagship collegiate Multipartisan Leaders Training Initiative, we are the only student-run, train-the-trainer based organization working to reduce polarization and strengthen our democracy.