Barb Wilson, U of I System Executive Vice President and Vice President for Academic Affairs, recently announced the second cohort for the system-wide Public Voices Fellowship. Dr. Shipra Gupta, UIS Department of Business Administration, was awarded the honor for 20-21.

The national Public Voices Fellowship is a unique opportunity led by The OpEd Project and designed for tenure-system faculty. The program is part of a national initiative to help faculty amplify their expertise in ways that can contribute to public conversations about pressing issues. The 20 faculty in this second cohort will attend four sessions held during the 2020-21 academic year and will be paired with a journalism mentor that provides one-on-one editing and coaching, with the goal of publishing two op-ed pieces during the program. More than 40 nominations from across our three universities were received for the program and the selection process was very competitive. Diversity of background and experiences as well as university representation were factors in the selection process.