Seated from left to right are Robert De Forest, Sarah White and Jessica Nierenberg, who won a Fulbright scholarship in April to examine a public-works project in Italy later this year. Senior fellow Steve Soboroff sits on the right.

Senior fellows counsel up to three students each during an academic year, offering insights into policy issues as well as the concrete benefit of their professional experience. Since its inception in 1997, 329 students and 106 fellows have participated in the program. Many students have benefited greatly: One gained a White House internship; another interned with the Financial Services Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives; a policy student spent time at the offices of The Economist magazine in London; two others attended a monthlong course on human-rights justice systems in Strasbourg, France. Past fellows have included former California Congressman Anthony Beilenson; Theodore Barreaux, director of oversight and evaluation at the HUD Office of Multi-Family Housing and Restructuring; Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Paul Conrad; John W. Mack, president of the Los Angeles Urban League; Andrea Rich '65, M.A. '66, Ph.D. '68, president of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Joseph Haggerty, president of United Way of Greater Los Angeles.

"The Senior Fellows Program is a key part of the clinical education of our students," says Barbara Nelson, dean of the School of Public Policy and Social Research, noting that the mentorship aspect of the program — which recently received a $30,000 gift from the Harman Family Foundation — grew out of a desire by fellows themselves to have more contact with students. "By accompanying the fellows for such things as nonprofit board meetings, editorial sessions, negotiations or just sharing coffee, our students see how successful leaders work, how they think and how they interact."

Adds VC Powe '75, M.B.A. '77, the school's executive director of external programs: "The program's aim is to show students how things work in the real world. Fellows give their time, which is something many people would pay to get."

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