Stanford University
Stanford Report, April 4, 2007

Haas Center awards John Gardner Public Service Fellowships to three students

Colin Burke

Colin Burke

Elisabeth Centeno

Elisabeth Centeno

Cammie Lee

Cammie Lee

The Haas Center for Public Service has awarded John Gardner Public Service Fellowships to seniors Colin Burke, Elisabeth Centeno and Cammie Lee. The students, who were chosen on March 12, each will spend 10 months working with a high-level mentor at a nonprofit, government or philanthropic institution.

The goal of the Gardner Fellowship is to encourage outstanding students to consider careers in public service by introducing fellows to leaders from all sectors of society. Founded in 1985 to honor Gardner's own remarkable contributions to the public sector, the fellowship is awarded to graduating seniors at both of his alma maters, Stanford and the University of California-Berkeley.

This year's fellows, selected by committees through written applications and personal interviews, represent a wide range of academic majors and service interests. Fellowship administrators say increased competition reflects the number of students who participate in service-related activities each year—often through programs offered at the Haas Center.

This year's fellows are:

  • Colin Burke, who is majoring in public policy, with a minor in Spanish. He is interested in international and domestic public health policy. For his honors thesis, he is researching barriers to completion of treatment for inmates in the Santa Clara County jail system receiving medication for latent tuberculosis infection. A winner of the Stanford Alumni Association's Pierce Award, Burke also founded Morning Outreach, a group devoted to inspiring student participation in a variety of public service issues. In addition, he has worked as a strategy researcher for FACE AIDS, a campaign to mobilize and inspire students to fight AIDS in Africa.
  • Elisabeth Centeno, who is double majoring in international relations and art history. She has worked as a research assistant and interpreter at Stanford Law School's Immigrant Rights Clinic, and as a legal extern at the Children's Rights Project, Public Counsel, in Los Angeles. She also has served as public interest chair for Derechos, Stanford's Latino pre-law society. Centeno said these experiences, along with her academic training and service work promoting social justice, fueled her interest in international human rights law, domestic civil rights issues and in improving legal access within underrepresented groups and low-income communities.
  • Cammie Lee, who is majoring in international relations while working toward a master's degree in sociology. She co-founded and co-directed Stanford Beyond Bars, an organization that won both the Dean of Students Outstanding Achievement Award and the MTV-Youth Venture public service innovation grant. Lee was a 2006 Sand Hill Fellow in Philanthropy at the Asia Foundation in San Francisco and received Stanford's James W. Lyons Award for Service. Having delved into the public, private and nonprofit sectors, Lee is interested in harnessing resources and best practices from all three to become a more effective public servant in areas related to U.S.-Asia foreign policy and human rights.

    • A distinguished public servant, Gardner was a former secretary of health, education and welfare. He was the first full-time chairman of the National Urban Coalition and founder of the White House Fellowship Program, Common Cause and Independent Sector. Gardner died in 2002.

    From 1989 to 1996, Gardner held the Miriam and Peter Haas Centennial Chair in Public Service at Stanford. During his tenure here, he also served three years as chair of the National Civic League. Gardner was a co-founder of the Haas Center's national advisory board and a member of the national advisory council for the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC-Berkeley.

    This year's Gardner Fellows from UC-Berkeley are Jennifer Browning, Kyle Maurer and Miriam Solis.

    SR