Reflections on the Fellowship
Many alumni reflect on their Fellowship year as a turning point in their lives, their careers, and their approach to their work. Have a look at what former Fellows are saying about their experiences in the Revson Fellowship program.
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Quang Bao Fellow 2006-2007
Courses, camaraderie, community–the fellowship provided all three in an engaging fashion. I thought as a mid-career professional I would feel out of synch with the students but their perspectives challenged me and the professors, the books I would have never read on my own and the guest speakers refreshed and enlivened my thinking and work practices. The fellowship felt like a sabbatical–only it took place on-campus.
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Sayu Bhojwani Fellow 2001-2002
The Revson Program is an unparalleled opportunity for committed New Yorkers to refuel-through conversations, classes, projects and reflection. For me, the Revson year provided a much-needed pause to assess the past and plan for the future, with guidance and support from the academic and activist communities. At the end of the year, I emerged stronger and clearer about my work goals, and personally more enriched and replenished by new relationships with colleagues and professors. With the Revson network and annual meetings to look forward to, the program keeps sustaining those of us working to make New York City a better place to live for all New Yorkers.
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Una Tomlinson Clarke Fellow 1983-1984
My year as a Revson Fellow was undeniably a productive experience from which I was able to benefit significantly. It afforded me a unique opportunity for the in-depth examination of child-care services in New York City and for the detailed analysis of public policies influencing the administration of the Human Resources Administration and its Agency for Child Development.
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Bettina Damiani Fellow 2006-2007
As a Revson Fellow I had the unique opportunity to experience the academic environment of Columbia University and learn from the real world experiences of the Revson cohort. My year as a Revson Fellow allowed me to grow professionally at the same time providing a well needed respite from my advocacy work. I was able to renew my commitment to public service and return to work rejuvenated.
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Norman D. Fruchter Fellow 1981-1982
The Revson year gave me the opportunity to immerse myself in education reform literature, engage in a year-long analysis of reform proposals, and through coursework, readings, and discussion with Teachers College faculty and students, develop my own ideas about how urban public schools might be improved. The program allowed me to make a critical transition in both where and how I’d previously worked.
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David Garcia Fellow 1991-1992
As I look back, I am aware of just how “formative” my Revson year was for me. Much of my energy and new ideas for a church-based response to poverty, racism, unemployment, and violence came out of the debates and discussions with the Revson Fellows in my class. One of the most neglected human resources in the city is the activists. The Revson Program redresses this critical imbalance, believing that democracy and public policy will be qualitatively improved if activists return to their communities with newly acquired skills, refined insights, and an informal network of new friends.
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Catherine Herman Fellow 2006-2007
The Revson year gave me a chance to see the parallels between the low-income communities I’ve worked in for so many years and a larger world in transition. It gave me an opportunity to explore what it means to work as an urban planner in regions in conflict. Through course work, discussions with faculty and students, directed reading, and the culmination of the year - a meeting with planners from the Balkans - I took a long journey that brought me back to where I started: housing can be a tool to stabilize an area’s economy, promote racial or cultural integration, and maybe even promote peace.
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Kim Hopper Fellow 1985-1986
Revson was a glorious, guiltless, officially sanctioned and supported year of immersion into lectures, good conversation, and the bottomless yield of Columbia’s impressive libraries. It made a gift of that most precious commodity of all: time. Nor could it have been delivered in better company or in more congenial surroundings. We ate together, talked endlessly, traded on our elevated status to bug professors for tutorials, and forged friendships that endure to this day.
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Lynn Lewis Fellow 2006-2007
My fellowship year provided me with the opportunity to test myself in new ways by engaging in academic studies and thinking more deeply about the issues with which we struggle on a daily basis. Taking the time to stretch myself intellectually has been incredibly rewarding, particularly within the context of the fellowship. I was honored to be a part of this cohort, all of the fellows were wonderfully supportive and interesting people and it was a gift to meet and work with each of them, as well as the Revson staff. It has been a wonderful year and I feel reinvigorated about my work as well as looking forward to continuing academic studies.
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J. Robin Moon Fellow 2006-2007
More than anything that Columbia had to offer, I feel that I’ve lived 9 new lives vicariously through the 9 other fellows. These are the 9 lives struggling and working for the City, while I was too, that I never knew about. My horizon has been broadened through which I would never have gotten in my classrooms. [Robin is a Master’s degree candidate at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs and the Mailman School of Public Health.]
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Jill Nelson Fellow 1983-1984
I had been working as a freelance journalist for over a decade. In some ways I was stymied and at a crossroads, trying to figure out how to more effectively write about the issues I was covering, how to broaden my understanding of the way the city is run and why, and ways in which I could reach a larger and broader audience. While a Fellow I took courses in urban planning, political science, law, ethno-musicology, and creative Writing. The courses strengthened my understanding of the ways politics, law, culture, and the urban environment intersect, giving me a grasp of the factors that contribute to whether or not that intersection results in conflict or community. One of the major benefits for me of the year spent as a Revson Fellow was interacting with the other Fellows. From them I got information, smarter, new perspectives, different ways of viewing events. As important, I began friendships and alliances that have lasted to this day. A community of activists/friends whom I can call on for advice, support, and understanding, and not merely of the political kind.
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Victor Quintana Fellow 1985-1986
The Program gave me an opportunity to reflect on my community organizing experience and career options. There, I met other seasoned advocates who believed that all available tools especially street activism and grassroots organizing must be used to advance progressive causes and agendas.
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Clifford Rosenthal Fellow 1983-1984
Coming at a time when my nonprofit organization was on the verge of extinction, the Fellowship enabled me to cobble together a strategy for survival, while acquiring the skills, credentials, and self-confidence to begin the transformation of the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions. Three years later, a New York State Community Development Financial Institutions Fund was established through my organization’s efforts. The fellowship year marked a turning point in my professional life; today, in the rear-view mirror, it remains a very prominent landmark and point of orientation.
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Gene Russianoff Fellow 1983-1984
The program helped not only by enhancing my skills as an advocate, but also by plugging me into a dynamic community for social change. Sitting on the Revson selection committee, I have had a unique perspective. I know the incredible quality of the people applying to be Revsons and what they are contributing to the city. A generation of activists has been refreshed and energized and sharpened by the Program.
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Esmerelda Simmons Fellow 1996-1997
Revson Program graduates now comprise the core of New York’s most effective social change agents. We work in, out and around government to recreate the City of New York in accordance with a model that many of us conceive of, or develop while in the Revson Program.
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Patricia Swan Fellow 1995-1996
Revson’s greatest benefit to me was the opportunity to learn and grow professionally with a diverse group of spirited, contentious, challenging, and stimulating peers whose only common denominator was a commitment to make New York City a better place.
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Tani Takagi Fellow 1996-1997
The Revson experience is as rejuvenating as it is enriching. It widens our individual networks considerably and allows each of us the opportunity to be both a teacher and a learner. For many of us, the Program restores balance in our lives and renews our sense of commitment for the long haul.
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Blanca Vazquez Fellow 2002-2003
The Revson year was an opportunity to recharge mental and spiritual batteries, to deepen my own understanding of important issues at what turned out to be a crucial time in our history, and to do so in the company of committed co-conspirators in the quest for peace and justice. It brings the enormous resources of a great university to the Fellows and time to reflect on how we can best utilize that knowledge to make a better New York City and world.
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Warren S. Whitlock Fellow 1997-1998
My effectiveness in my current position owes a great deal to my experience as a Revson Fellow. First, of course, was the superb academic instruction I received. But equally important is the way I learned to truly appreciate the full range of other people’s perspectives and insights. As a Fellow, I was presented with such a diversity of opinions on issues that bore directly or indirectly on my work that I gained enormous skills in working with people of different viewpoints. I continue to see Revson Fellows regularly and rely on the informal Revson network when I need new information or insights.
The Revson year gave me a chance to see the parallels between the low-income communities I’ve worked in for so many years and a larger world in transition. It gave me an opportunity to explore what it means to work as an urban planner in regions in conflict. Through course work, discussions with faculty and students, directed reading, and the culmination of the year - a meeting with planners from the Balkans - I took a long journey that brought me back to where I started: housing can be a tool to stabilize an area’s economy, promote racial or cultural integration, and maybe even promote peace.
