Dalai Lama Fellowship

The Dalai Lama Fellowship at Stanford

A Collaboration of The Stanford Storytelling Project and the Graduate School of Education

The Dalai Lama Fellowship at Stanford is a year-long program that gives students the opportunity to develop inner resources and skills to lead social change. Fellows learn an approach to leadership that sees it as a set of capacities that allow one to meet the world authentically— capacities such as self-awareness, compassion, and imagination. They also learn how to develop and apply these capacities by collaboratively designing and launching a specific social change project. 

This fellowship is part of a wider, global Dalai Lama Fellowship program that you can read about here.  Stanford Dalai Lama Fellows will learn from and may collaborate with fellows in this wider program. 

What Dalai Lama Fellows Do

Each year, Dalai Lama Fellows form a community with one another, mentors, and teachers to cultivate and practice skills for leading sustainable, compassion-driven social change. Fellows attend two one-day retreats, take one course, develop a grant funded project, and meet regularly as a cohort all year long.  

  • In the fall, Fellows take a 4-unit version LIFE 182 (Mondays, 1:30-5:20pm), a foundation course that explores models of human development and practices that can help us become authentic, effective leaders. The last hour of each week's class will be devoted specifically to community building, project development, and practices taught in the Dalai Lama Fellow programs across the country.
  • In the winter and spring, Fellows work in teams on a self-designed, service-oriented project, with the support of a mentor and small grant. In bi-weekly meals we explore how to apply what has been learned in the fall, how to meet typical leadership challenges, and how to put compassion into action. Fellows also meet and learn from other Dalai Lama Fellows around the country and the world.
  • At the end of spring quarter, we close with another one-day retreat where Fellows, in their teams, tell the story of their projects and what they have learned about leadership.    

What Fellows Gain

Fellows learn both the theory and practice of skills that support effective, authentic leadership.  The fall foundation course introduces fellows to the capacities that underlie both human development and leadership and the practices that help develop them. Mentorship of projects in the winter and spring quarter help students develop core leadership capacities.  

Fellows receive 3-units of credit for the fall course and a $1,000 stipend to support project development in the winter and spring quarters.  They also become part of a supportive, life-long community of Dalai Lama Fellows from around the world, all committed to becoming more effective leaders and creating more flourishing in the world.

An Integrated Leadership Curriculum

The Fellowship’s unique Head, Heart, and Hands Curriculum offers each Fellow a dynamic learning journey informed by the latest research on leadership and creative practice and by the wisdom of contemplative traditions.  The collaborative development of a specific project across the academic year allows Fellows to experiment with and put into practice skills for mindful awareness, emotional intelligence, creating meaningful connections, navigating uncertainty, using power with care, storytelling, and more. The curriculum focuses on three areas:

  • Head – Training the mind and attention, cultivating self-awareness, understanding systems
  • Heart – Harnessing the wisdom of the heart, deepening compassion, working across differences, navigating uncertainty

  • Hands – “Getting the hands dirty,” enacting wisdom and compassion in social innovation work

Core Values

We embrace and advance five core values as we conduct our work:

  • Integrity — We strive to be wholly honest and to have consistent alignment between our values and actions
  • Interdependence — We work in the interest of present and future generations because we are all connected and mutually dependent
  • Resilience — We meet challenges with optimism, ingenuity, flexibility, and grace
  • Humbition (Humility + Ambition) — We live with the questions rather than presume the answers, and ground social change with respect for others
  • Courage — We have strength to take action for moral reasons, despite doubts, fears or risk of adverse consequences

Who oversees the Fellowship

The Dalai Lama Fellowship at Stanford has been led over the years by members of Stanford Living Education, the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, the Graduate School of Education, and the Stanford Storytelling Project. The Fellowship is currently led by anthony antonio, Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education, and Jonah Willihnganz, Director of the Stanford Storytelling Project.  Fellows are mentored by faculty and staff of these units and Fellows of the Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute.  

Who may Apply

Any matriculating undergraduate or graduate student at Stanford.

How to Apply

Applications typically open in spring quarter and fellows are announced by fall quarter. After a short online application, leaders of the program will communicate with applicants within a week of application if we would like to schedule a brief interview by zoom. Check back here in spring quarter if you are interested in applying to the next cycle.

Please be sure that you have read carefully the description of the program above and can commit to its requirements, including the Fall course and Winter/Spring bi-weekly meals. You will be contacted within a week of your application about any next steps, which may include a short interview.