Pace University Awarded $300K Teagle Foundation Grant to Launch NYC Civic Fellowship

Pace University has received a $300,000 three-year implementation grant from the Teagle Foundation to launch The City and the Sea: A New York City Fellowship in Civics and Public Service, a new initiative that prepares undergraduates to become civic leaders in New York City.

The new funding builds on a $25,000 planning grant awarded in 2024 and supports the launch of the program, which pairs transformative classroom learning with paid experiential opportunities in New York City public service. Anchored at Pace’s New York City Campus, The City and the Sea is designed to develop a sense of place for students in the Lower Manhattan context of Pace University’s campus, especially as it relates to the water and the waterfront environment.

Beginning in Fall 2025, the fellowship will welcome its first cohort of 10 undergraduate students. The program includes a two-semester academic sequence covering the topics of city politics and policy, and civic leadership and engagement in the context of New York City’s land, coastal and oceanfront governance. This will allow students to learn about the city’s history and theoretical foundations as well as its government, governance, and service delivery - and the ways that they can influence decisions about their local communities. Following these two courses, students will complete summer internships that allow them to practice their civic leadership and engagement skills. Throughout the fellowship, students will engage in immersive, hands-on experiences that are central to Pace’s commitment to learning for real life.

“This fellowship will provide our students a platform for intellectual exploration founded in required reading of transformative historical texts, while developing their understanding of the city around them” said Rebecca Tekula, PhD, principal investigator and executive director of Pace’s Wilson Center. “This particular theme will allow our team to explore with students the question of what it means to be civically engaged in the community where you live, while drawing upon our deep ties to our neighborhood organizations and agencies.”

Housed in the Helene T. and Grant M. Wilson Center for Social Entrepreneurship in the Office of the Provost, the program represents a strategic investment in public service education and reaffirms Pace University’s role as a forward-looking institution embedded in the life of New York City.

Pace students interested in this unique opportunity can reach out to wilsoncenter@pace.edu for more information.