Are you a future social impact practitioner?
If so, The Arcus Social Justice Corps (ASJC) is calling on you.
What is the ASJC?
The ASJC is a new fellowship program at the College of Environmental Design that offers significant tuition-relief for select graduate students who intend to do social justice work after graduation.
If selected to be an Arcus Fellow, students will make a pledge to enter social impact careers for at least three years after leaving the College of Environmental Design (CED). The ASJC seeks to attract students who will have the most potential to make transformational social change in the world. This program especially aims to empower students who come from vulnerable communities and want to effectuate direct change in their communities after graduation.
Social Justice + Design
In the context of environmental design, social justice work is wide ranging. Social justice can mean addressing the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events which have been proven to affect underserved communities the most; developing affordable, public, and social housing; addressing environmental pollution, toxicity, and degradation especially in community of color; increasing access to healthy and sustainable food systems in low income communities and in food deserts; reforming urban planning policies that have had detrimental impacts on race in America such as redlining; designing public spaces that reflect the values and voices of the communities in which they are built, and beyond. Architects, landscape architects and environmental planners, city and regional planners, real estate developers, and urban designers are well equipped to tackle all of these problems. By working in nonprofits, NGOs, higher education, government agencies, or by creating their very own forms of new radical practice, graduates in environmental design fields can move the needle on essential social change.
The ASJC Community within CED
By being inducted into the ASJC, students will not only receive debt relief but also a sense of belonging through the building of a community that is dedicated to social justice. The ASJC will offer programming throughout the year for students to incubate new ideas, attend seminars, receive career planning support, engage in community-connected studios, and receive direct mentorship from practitioners in the real world. Arcus Fellows will also lead a dynamic social justice movement within Bauer Wurster Hall to inspire all CED students—undergraduate, graduate, across all disciplines and backgrounds, and those planning more traditional career paths. The hope is that Arcus Fellows will return to CED in the years to come to mentor future cohorts of students who want to pursue public service work in the real world, to gain a better understanding of what this means.
2021-2022 Award Cycle
Arcus Fellows will be selected by a CED committee that includes practitioners in social justice, faculty, staff, student, and alumni representatives. Every enrolled masters student at CED will be eligible to apply for an Arcus Fellowship and the inaugural cohort will be selected in the Fall of 2021. Each year thereafter, the selection process will take place when prospective students apply for graduate admissions into UC Berkeley.
Instructions to apply for the ASJC will be released to all CED graduate students in August 2021. Email messaging will come from the Dean’s office as soon as the fall semester begins.
Should you have any question in the meantime, please contact us at: CEDArcusFellows@berkeley.edu