Office of Civic Engagement

The Odyssey Engaged Scholarship, administered by the Office of Civic Engagement, was designed to provide University of Chicago undergraduates with a history of civic involvement a chance to develop professional skills in the nonprofit employment market under the guidance of the leadership at community-based nonprofits, and under academic guidance from the Public Policy Department in the College. The goal of the program was broadly to connect these students to practitioners in the field, allowing the students to work towards building social impact-focused careers.

Students’ experience in the program was based around two main aspects: Firstly, the fellows all enrolled in a unique, ten-week accredited course in the Public Policy Department designed in part by the Office of Civic Engagement. Secondly, each participant was successfully placed with a 35-hourper week internship at a community-based nonprofit. In addition to these two features, students also attended field excursions to philanthropic organizations supporting initiatives at local nonprofits, and each completed a capstone project intended to support the work of the organization in which they were placed. The Office of Civic Engagement also recruited and hired two-part time SSA graduating students who served as mentors for the youth and who worked as teaching assistants in the required Public Policy course.