Three 2010 graduates of the School of Education and Social Policy were selected as fellows of the Northwestern University Public Interest Program (NUPIP). Aaron Beswick, Zoya Kolkin and Rachael Suffrin will work with Chicago nonprofit organizations as members of the new NUPIP cohort of fellows.
NUPIP is a one-year fellowship that helps train a new generation of leaders for social change through paid public interest work, professional development seminars and mentorship by Northwestern alumni. NUPIP is designed to introduce young alumni to organizations whose missions are to create systemic social change, as well as to enable these organizations to capitalize on the skills and abilities of Northwestern graduates.
Beswick is working with The Community Builders, one of the largest and most active nonprofit development corporations in the United States, which has a mission of building and sustaining strong communities. He sees his fellowship with Community Builders as an avenue for contributing significant and culturally relevant social service supports and interventions. Beswick, who majored in human development and psychological services, was co-chair of the Freshman Urban Program at Northwestern University. He maintains that his four years at Northwestern University were spent learning as much as he could about people, families and the challenges of growth and development. By investigating social injustices, he says he became motivated to better understand how to create positive change in communities. He is now living and working in Bronzeville.
Kolkin's fellowship is with Upwardly Global, where she started her career through her SESP practicum. The organization assists immigrant professionals who want to rebuild their careers in the United States. As a Northwestern undergraduate, Kolkin served for three years as the co-coordinator of NU STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Movement, and she taught a student-led seminar on genocide education. At Upwardly Global, Zoya supports job seekers in regulated professions, assists them with their job search and licensing requirements, and does policy work. Kolkin, who was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, has a passion for immigrant issues.
Suffrin is a NUPIP fellow for Companies That Care, an organization that enlists professionals to assist nonprofits. At Northwestern, she majored in human development and psychological services, was a teaching assistant for SESP's Introduction to Community Development course and led a Freshman Emerging Leaders class. She also was involved with Camp Kesem, a student-run camp for kids whose parents have cancer; Hillel and Meor Northwestern; Peer Health Exchange, where she taught nutrition and physical activity in a Chicago public high school; varsity cross country; the Global Engagement Summer Institute. She spent one summer as a community consultant in Argentina and earned a Certificate in Civic Engagement.
One of the hallmarks of NUPIP, which is modeled after Princeton University's Project 55 program, is that fellows participate in weekly seminars and alumni mentoring. At the seminars, where NUPIP Fellows join Princeton and University of Chicago graduates, experts address relevant topics and fellows discuss common challenges and satisfactions of working for the social good. Alumni mentors at their organizations work with fellows in their various fields of interest.