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Cal Turner Program Student Fellowship

This is an image of Cal Turner Jr. speaking to members of the CTP Program in the VDS Reading Room.

Applications for the 26-27 academic year have been released.

How to Apply

Please submit the following materials in one document with name and school listed in file name:

Cover letter, resume and 500-word essay covering:

What is your professional moral concern? What can be done about it with your professional knowledge, tools, and skills? Why is it your particular concern (what about your life has made it meaningful to you)?

Finalists may receive a zoom interview. 
 
Due March 1, 2026, via email to laine.c.walters.young@vanderbilt.edu; applications will be reviewed as they are received—early submission is encouraged to help our small review team! 

Open Houses to meet current and past fellows

  • RESCHEDULED FROM STORM: Wednesday, February 18th from 1:15 to 2:15 pm at Owen Graduate School of Management in Rm 213
  • Thursday, February 5th from 12:30-1:30 at the Vanderbilt Peabody College of Education and Human Development, Mayborn Building in Rm 117

If you would like to attend either of those open houses, please let Laine know at laine.c.walters.young@vanderbilt.edu, as well as about food restrictions you may have.

Over the past 15 years, the Cal Turner Program for Moral Leadership has invited students, from Vanderbilt's professional schools of law, divinity, education, business management, nursing, and medicine to participate in project-based teams focused on interprofessional and community engagement around socio-moral concerns. Fellowship cohorts have ranged in size and style of project engagement. This year, 21 fellows meet twice a month over lunch to discuss and reflect upon moral leadership, moral values, moral power, and moral conflict. They will choose interprofessional small group moral inquiry projects for the spring term.

As the main program of the CTPML, the goal of the student fellowship is working with fellows to deepen their moral range and sense of social responsibility/possibility through providing spaces for grounded idealism and moral fellowship.

Image

Presentation during the 2025 Fellow Retreat. 

Presentations from 2025: 

Balancing Integrity and Perception: Conscientiousness and Skepticism across the Professions 

This is the poster for the Balancing Integrity project.

The Cost of Coming Home: Reentry and the Burden of Perfection

This is the poster for the Balancing Integrity project.

Admissions Testing: Strategies, Perspectives, and Reflection

This is the poster for the Balancing Integrity project.

Reinventing a Roof: Gentrification and Housing Crisis in Nashville

This is the poster for the Balancing Integrity project.

Implications of AI Integration in Mental Health

This is the poster for the Balancing Integrity project.

Presentations from 2024:

Moral Resiliency in the Professions 

Welcoming (Im)migrant Children to Middle Tennessee

Evolution of Feminism and Gender Equity

Promoting and Sustaining Equity

Presentations from 2023: 

Hope in the Margins:Moral Leadership within the Prison System

Authentic Leadership 

Exploring the Moral Implications of Postpartum Depression: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Current Fellows

2025-2026 Fellows

Divinity

Niambi McLaurin
M. Hunter Stanfield
Xandria Flores

Law School

Victor Castagno
Jordan Teshima
Sarah Austin

Owen (Business Management)

Rachel Wood
Shane Jafar
Mansi Chouskey

Peabody College (human and community development)

Sisilia Tunga
Melody Suite
Syed Muhammad Husain Zaidi

Medicine

Devanshi Bhangle
Lily Campbell Lewis
James Bathon 
Chimdindu Peace Ugwanyi 

Nursing

Bemnet Argaw
Alexis von der Lieth

Engineering 

Anas Reda 
Bruno Hidalgo Monroy Lerma

Past Fellows