New Graduate School Partnership with UVA's Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy

The Bonner Foundation is pleased to announced a new graduate school partnership with University of Virginia's Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.

UVA's Batten School at a glance:

• As part of the University of Virginia, Batten students enjoy the resources and network of a university that is consistently ranked as one of the top three public schools in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. 

• Of the 250-plus schools of public policy and administration in the U.S., the Batten School has the distinction of being the only one explicitly committed to teaching leadership—how it works, why context matters in decision-making and which actions lead to tangible results.

• Graduates of the Batten School are in high demand. They’re recruited aggressively by government agencies, from the intelligence community to Congress, local interest groups and NGOs, and by private-sector employers from consulting firms to investment-risk analysts.

“The Batten School was created to educate and train the next generation of inspired policy leaders. To advance that mission, we felt that we needed to be more proactive in building relationships with institutions with high-caliber potential applicants, those we believe will thrive not only at Batten, but will be leaders of consequence in the policy world in the long run,” said Jeff Chidester, Batten Executive Director of External Affairs. “And in the aggregate, this effort will help us build the kind of diverse applicant pool we value as a school.”

The Bonner/Batten Partnership encourages current or former Bonner Scholars and Bonner Leaders interested in pursuing graduate education in leadership and public policy to apply to the Batten MPP. The Batten School will provide an application fee waiver for all Bonner Scholars and Bonner Leaders, and for those accepted into the program, a minimum guaranteed fellowship of $10,000/year for Virginia residents and $17,500/year for non-Virginia residents in each of the MPP program’s two years. 

Learn more about Batten's MPP program here. 

Jacqueline Muna Musiitwa, '03 Davidson College Game Changer

Jacqueline Muna Musiitwa, ‘03, Bonner Scholar alum is profiled on Davidson College’s website as a “game changer: inspiring leaders to transform the world.”

“As a Bonner Scholar, I did a community service project per semester and read a lot on the subject of service. The process required lots of self-analysis – finding a cause, a purpose. It was very objective – who are you as a person, what are your skills, what can you do?”

— https://gamechangers.davidson.edu/people/jacqueline-muna-musiitwa-03/

Jacqueline Muna Musiitwa, Esq. is the Executive Director of Financial Sector Deepening Uganda.  She is the Founder and Managing Partner of Hoja Law Group, a boutique legal consultancy that represents clients in corporate governance, commercial and public law matters.   Jacqueline served as Legal Counsel and Assistant to the CEO and President of the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank (PTA Bank) and Chief Legal and Investor Relations at Microcred Africa. She was also an advisor to the Director General of the World Trade Organization on matters of trade, economic integration and global governance and has been an Advisor to several African governments on matters related to trade, investment and energy.

“A game changers are people who dare to do things differently, to take risks, because of the change they want to see in society. They want to change minds, and change the way things are done, and they are willing to risk speaking truth to power.” “When I think of game changers traditionally, I think of Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela – but increasingly, the game changers I see and deal with are young entrepreneurs, mostly in the tech space, seeking solutions to critical problems within this society. They’re coming up with mobile apps to help farmers in agriculture, finding ways to aggregate data in order to advise policymakers, developing mobile apps that serve as payment systems. From my perspective, these game changers are younger and not necessarily putting themselves at risk, but they’re doing innovative things to solve social problems.” 

Read her full profile here on Davidson College’s website.

30 Bonner Alumni Career Profiles

Since 1990, the Bonner Program has engaged more than 15,000 students as Bonner Scholars and Leaders across more than 65 colleges and universities in the United States. As reinforced by evidence from the Bonner Alumni Survey and Bonner Student Impact Survey, being a Bonner has a deep, lasting impact on graduates in many ways.

The Bonner experience shapes students' majors and academic interests, career and personal aspirations, leadership abilities and skills. Additionally, program participation often help graduates develop tools to succeed after college, including a sense of equanimity and well-being.

Bonner graduates continue to stay civically engaged after college, through their vocational choices, and through expression of personal values and commitments.In the summer of 2018, the National Bonner Interns and Foundation staff embarked on a project to capture the stories and perspectives of Bonner Alumni. Thirty alumni participated in interviews with the interns, sharing stories which were then used to develop new Alumni Profiles (which highlight key parts of their journeys during and since college) and Job Profiles (which describe the work they do now in many sectors to continue to contribute to positive social change). 

We invite you to watch and listen, then peruse the thirty profiles on this site. Special thanks to Aleah Qureshi, Alexander Nichols, Ashlee Renich-Malek, Kai Mangino, and Taylor Clarke for their work to develop these profiles, as well as to Samantha Ha and Ariane Hoy in guiding this process. Extra special thanks to Jasmine Rangel for her creative vision and expertise in making this video!After watching the video, be sure to visit and read the Alumni Profiles!