Gift launches fellowship fund

The Harvard Kennedy School of Government has received a $5 million gift from Glenn Dubin, co-founder and CEO of Highbridge Capital Management.  This gift will be used to launch a graduate fellowship fund to support and develop new programs for emerging leaders from the United States and around the world.

The Dubin Graduate Fellowships for Emerging Leaders will be based at Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership (CPL).  Dubin Fellowships will be awarded on a competitive basis and will provide full tuition for up to 10 students each year, beginning in the 2010–11 academic year. Fellowship applicants will be judged on demonstrated academic excellence, leadership potential, and depth of commitment to making a transformative impact on the communities they intend to serve.

In addition to their formal course work, Dubin Fellows will have the opportunity to participate in a broad set of supporting activities, including leadership workshops, an interdisciplinary discussion series with eminent practitioners and thought leaders, field experience in a range of settings, and mentorship with Kennedy School graduates.

Harvard Kennedy School Dean David T. Ellwood, who has set increasing student financial aid as one of his top priorities, remarked that the Dubin Fellowships will serve as “strategic investments in outstanding individuals with demonstrated promise.”

“The Dubin Fellowships will transform the lives of their recipients — and perhaps the world they will go on to lead and to serve,” said Ellwood. “We are deeply grateful to the Dubin family and delighted to honor Glenn’s example of distinguished leadership.”

“Glenn Dubin is a rare individual,” said David R. Gergen, director of CPL and public service professor of public leadership at Harvard Kennedy School. “He brings to his very active philanthropic life the same creativity, strategic insight, and passion that have taken him to the pinnacle of his profession. Coming on the heels of a 2009 donation to support CPL’s teaching and research, this new gift enables us to extend our time-tested model of graduate fellowships supported by robust co-curricular programming. Just as important, Glenn’s engagement with us as a ‘thinking partner’ is leading our center to new heights of strategic innovation and operational excellence.”

“The ideas behind this new fellowship are some of those which have guided my professional and philanthropic life,” said Dubin. “My hope for this program is to identify extraordinarily talented and passionate individuals who have been able to overcome challenges in life, and provide them with a unique experience that will ultimately allow them to make a lasting impact on communities around the world. I am delighted to be partnering with the Harvard Kennedy School and its Center for Public Leadership in this program.”

Dubin is a founding member of the board of directors and former board chair of the Robin Hood Foundation, and a trustee of Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York.  He is an alumnus of the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Established in 2000 through a generous grant from the Wexner Foundation, the Center for Public Leadership is celebrating its 10th anniversary of advancing the frontiers of knowledge about leadership and deepening the pool of leaders for the common good.