SELECT PAST FELLOWS’ PROJECTS
Alex Adams: Alex utilized the King County Water Taxi as an educational platform for students of all ages and backgrounds to learn about careers in government, the maritime industry, and environmental stewardship, in order to inspire them to engage in the outdoors.
Jed Bradley partnered with the Doorway Project, a state-funded partnership aimed to strengthen services for young people experiencing homelessness in Seattle’s University District, to engage in a needs assessment for service delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. Initial discussions with project leadership and community partners resulted in systems and tools that they could use to better serve their constituents.
Jenny Cooper designed Civics & Swing States, a free 4-week program aimed at mobilizing young people to meaningfully engage in the 2020 elections. This led to her facilitating 4 sessions of Civics & Swing States, 2 in the summer and 2 in the fall, to roughly 130 people. While designed for high school students, she opened the program up to anyone who was interested. Participants were aged 12-79 years old, and included students, faculty, parents, and friends from The Northwest School, the greater Seattle area, and across the country.
Jaime Hawk: Using the Jackson Foundation’s publication on Senator Jackson, The Nature of Leadership: Lessons from an Exemplary Statesman, Jaime developed an interactive workshop for undergraduate women attending the Center for Women and Democracy’s Leadership Institute. As part of this, women from the Jackson Leadership Fellows addressed female college students during a panel discussion.
Martina Kartman’s project involved working with Collective Justice’s staff to build a series of leadership trainings to support and elevate the visions of justice and safety as defined by members of the most vulnerable and impacted communities – a group that understands violence as connected to a broader historical context and insists on racial equity.
Ilana Cone Kennedy: Ilana created a student leadership board to enrich and broaden the scope of student engagement at the Holocaust Center for Humanity and inform the Center’s programs and resources. The middle and high school students meet monthly to learn more about the Holocaust and human rights, engage with local community leaders, speak with Holocaust survivors, and develop their own social action service projects.
Andrew Lewis: Andrew’s project culminated in a law and policy paper published in spring 2016 in the Ecology Law Quarterly’s publication Currents, a syndicated online environmental law journal. His paper outlined recommendations to provide stable sources of funding for the Land Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). Senator Jackson introduced the original Land and Water Conservation Fund Act at President Kennedy’s request.
Leah Missik profiled Russian environmental activists in a series of articles about a variety of people, all of whom have strived for environmental protection in a context that is harsh to civil society and independent activism. These profiles described the activists’ stories and lessons learned, how they have developed as people and as leaders, how they determine success, and how they maintain their spirits — points that are of use to activists today in the United States and everywhere.
Tamara Power-Drutis hosted a workshop entitled “Press for the People: A Grassroots Media Workshop.” This workshop provided a one-day training for refugees, immigrants, and ethnic community leaders to infuse their stories and perspectives into traditional and non-profit media. Participants gained an understanding of journalistic standards and ethics, best practices, multi-media tools, and techniques needed to participate in and shape the Northwest’s rich civic life.
Mollie Price co-designed a servant leadership curriculum with her students and piloted it in her Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) class. AVID is a national, four-year high school class designed to prepare low-income students, students of color, and first-generation college-bound students for post-secondary success. Lessons learned from the project are that students need a sense of purpose, a sense of self, and a sense of community, and that servant leadership skills and the eight leadership characteristics in The Nature of Leadership can help them get there. This pilot project will now become part of the curriculum, which will benefit several hundred students.
Alexis Mercedes Rinck created a public-facing inventory of city-level equity initiatives and activities, which will be available on the Sound Cities Association website. The project required research into equity-oriented data collection, collaboration and relationship building with city staff engaging in equity work, and hosting an event to teach SCA members how to navigate the inventory when it is launched.
Kiana Scott: Kiana’s project, titled “Resilient Leadership for the Changing World,” convened a panel of local and regional leaders for a conversation about knowing when to take risks, recovering from failure, and joyful public service. This project built upon the strong relationship between the Henry M. Jackson Foundation and the University of Washington’s Evans School, and leveraged Kiana’s professional role as an Evans School staff member.
Simphiwe Laura Stewart: Laura’s project resulted in a dynamic video, Our Story, which reflected extensive community interviews with leaders and under-represented voices in Seattle to develop a narrative on local environmental and climate justice issues. The series culminated in a breakfast where interviewees and members of the public watched her video and engaged in a facilitated discussion to tackle climate justice and environmental justice in a comprehensive manner.
Lacie West communicated through a publication on how youth view and create successful leadership by demonstrating how their values connect with Senator Jackson’s values of being inquisitive, visionary, diligent, pragmatic, open, honest, determined, and inspiring. This publication can be used by any organization that focuses on youth leadership and development, as well as those organizations that want to incorporate youth voices into their work. The youth voice is critical to our future leadership, and the power of the youth voice can change systems and policies as we have seen throughout history and especially in the past few years.
Hans Zeiger: Hans focused on how Senator Jackson built effective relationships during his long career in public service by focusing on his personal and professional relationships. Drawing from writings and speeches about Jackson and interviews with former Jackson staff members, Hans wrote an article on Jackson’s distinctive way of connecting with people, intended for publication in a journal of history or politics.