For Undergraduates

The Undergraduate Fellowship Program, our primary offering for Harvard undergraduates, provides students working in any discipline with the community, background, and instruction needed for them to complete a senior thesis with an ethics component. Through seminars, workshops, lectures, and opportunities to interact with each other, the rest of the Fellows at the Center, and our phenomenal affiliated faculty, they learn the skills that will allow them to address moral issues in public life throughout their careers. This Fellowship is part-time, but lasts from the Fellow's acceptance in their Sophomore or Junior year until they graduate, ensuring that they become integral members of the intellectual life at the Center. Fellows receive a modest, one-time book award and may apply for summer research support through our Lester Kissel Summer Grants.

The Lester Kissel Summer Grants offer financial support to Harvard undergraduate students who will be working on an ethics-focused research or writing project over the summer, typically the summer before their senior year. These grants of $500 to $3,000 are directly responsible for ensuring that students are able to produce high quality work on a topic in practical ethics. The Lester Kissel Summer Grants are available to all Harvard College students; you do not need to be an Undergraduate Fellow in Ethics to receive a grant.

The Intercollegiate Civil Disagreement Partnership Fellowship is our newest offering for undergraduates. This exciting, groundbreaking program offers 8 Harvard undergraduates training in ways to engage in and facilitate hard conversations across political difference. Moreover, the program connects the Harvard students with students engaging in the same work at five other institutions of higher education, that are themselves diverse and enroll students with an enormous variety of life experiences. Students commit 2-3 hours per week to the program and are awarded an honorarium of $1,000. 

Finally, the Undergraduate Ethics Society encourages collaborative and accessible discourse on pressing ethical issues and to supply students and the wider public with an ethical toolkit that they can productively apply to their daily lives. The Center supports Harvard's Undergraduate Ethics Society and its Ethics Bowl Team, founded by former Undergraduate Fellow Jill Sharples. The team is coached by Civil Discourse Fellow Brian Palmiter. In collaboration with the Harvard Philosophy Department, the Center has launched a new course designed to help students master the type of discourse found in the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl competition.