2026-2027 Transform Mid-Atlantic Civic Fellowship Program Nomination Form

Thank you for your interest in nominating a Transform Mid-Atlantic Civic Fellow to represent your campus during the 2026-2027 program year!

We are particularly excited about this year's cohort, as it will be the fifth group of students to participate in our network's flagship student-centered program! The TMACF Program offers dedicated young leaders in our region the opportunity to develop new knowledge, understanding, skills, and experiences that complement their curricular and community-engaged activities. Previous TMA Civic Fellows have gone on to pursue careers in the public service, governmental, and non-profit sectors or have decided to continue their education. The 2026-2027 cohort of fellows will join a vibrant and growing network of program alumni representing the diversity of our region's communities and campuses, including those who have attended and graduated from 2-year, 4-year, public, private, HBCU, and minority-serving institutions. 

The form below can be saved and returned to later. To view the information that will be required in this nomination, please return to the Transform Mid-Atlantic Civic Fellowship webpage and click on the nomination form preview document. Please note that each campus president is permitted to submit a nomination for just one student to represent their campus in the program. The deadline to submit nominations is Thursday, March 19, 2026 by the close of business. Deadline extensions may be granted on a case-by-case basis. Please contact Director of the TMACF Program and Special Projects, Anthony Wagner, with any questions at wagner@transformmidatlantic.org. 

We also invite those supporting their institution's president in the nomination of a student civic fellow to join an upcoming information session: 

• Thursday, January 22, 11:00AM-12:00PM - Click here to register
• Tuesday, January 27, 11:00AM-12:00PM - Click here to register
• Wednesday, February 4, 2:00-3:00PM - Click here to register

**If all materials necessary for submitting a nomination are gathered, we anticipate that completion of this form will take no more than 10 minutes. 

President's Nomination Letter
Please upload a letter of nomination written and signed by the president of the nominating institution on official institutional letterhead. The letter should briefly describe the president’s rationale for nominating the selected student to serve as a 2026-2027 Transform Mid-Atlantic Civic Fellow. TMA encourages presidents to include information about the nominee's:

• academic achievements (including any community-engaged research, coursework, and/or scholarship); 
• co- or extra-curricular contributions (including leadership experiences and community-engaged volunteer service and contributions);
• dedication to and record of creating a campus and community culture of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion;
• propensity and potential to create positive social change on campus or in the community. 

Please include specific examples of the student’s participation and leadership in service-learning and civic and community engagement programs and initiatives, including but not limited to contributions made through their involvement with student government, partnerships with community-based organizations, global study initiatives, and student advocacy efforts.

We invite you, also, to briefly describe evidence of the nominee’s intellectual and cultural humility – or their propensity for using active-listening to develop knowledge and understanding before taking action to address challenges on campus and in the community.

Please include information about how participation in this collaborative regional Civic Fellowship would benefit your institution’s nominee and, ultimately, your campus.

NOMINEE NARRATIVE
Please provide a statement (no more than 1,000 words, 12-point font, Times New Roman, Single-spaced) written by the nominated student that answers the narrative questions below. The nominee's profile should be submitted as a PDF document. Please note that the nominee's responses may be shared publically via their profile page on the TMA website. The nominee's name, institution, & class year and degree/major should be included at the top of the first page of the document, centered and in bold text, as below: 

FirstName LastName
Example University
Class of 2029, BA, Political Science and Sociology Major
[Space]

Begin profile question responses here... 

NARRATIVE QUESTIONS: 

1) Leadership: When you think about "leadership," what qualities or skills do you find to be most important, especially when it comes to catalyzing positive change? Please tell us about a time when you were able to live into or practice these qualities / skills.

2) Sustainability & Problem Solving: Describe a key, complex problem on your campus or in your community. How have you already or might you in the future use your voice, skills, and competencies to tackle this problem in a sustainable way? Note: We encourage you to think about sustainability as it has been defined by the United Nations as "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."

3) Skill Development: What skills related to leadership, civic and community engagement, and/or sustainable change-making do you hope to develop in the year to come? How are these skills related to your long-term goals and objectives? 

4) Mission Inspiration: Share a quote from an individual, book, film, family member, mentor, or other source that you find particularly inspirational in relation to your mission as a community-engaged student leader. Please share a few sentences about the "why" and "how" behind this quote's meaning to you. 

5) Commitment to Participation: Do you agree and fully commit to participating in all activities of the fellowship year - including the completion of a capstone project? This includes monthly 2-hour-long fellowship guest speaker sessions, monthly hour-long peer group meetings, and an end-of-year in-person retreat? Note: At this time, TMA anticipates that most sessions will occur in the evening hours to avoid significant conflicts with students' academic schedules. (Simply respond "Yes" or "No," adding any details you think are important.)