The Wisconsin Idea Fellowship (WIF) provides a great learning opportunity for undergraduate students to see not just one way of doing research and being in partnership with communities, but to seek methods of how public service is done in different ways.
The fellowship awards grants annually to any undergraduate student or student projects that addresses positive change for communities in Madison and around the world. These projects are long-term, either a semester or an entire academic year, and each project collaborates with a community partner as well as a UW-Madison faculty advisor for support. Amounts awarded to these groups vary, but they can be as high as $7,000.
Each year, this support takes many forms. Typically, five to ten fellowship awards given out, with two projects specifically emphasizing social entrepreneurship and the opportunity gap existing in Madison. The priority application for the 2026-27 academic year is now open, meaning that if a proposal is submitted by Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026 at 11:59 p.m., then it will be given formative feedback in an effort to strengthen proposals. You will have a chance to resubmit your proposal before the final deadline on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026 at 11:59 p.m.
This commitment to community-engaged learning is reflected in the people behind the program as well. This fall, the Morgridge Center for Public Service welcomed Rosanne Luu, the new community-engaged scholarship teaching assistant. Luu is a doctoral student at UW–Madison studying curriculum and instruction and found herself drawn to the Morgridge Center as she began to consider how communities are involved in research.
She found that the more she engaged in the local community, the more she found ways to tailor what she was teaching and finding ways to “study the things they want to study and learn the things they want to learn.”
The Wisconsin Idea Fellowship centers itself on a deeper purpose: finding a community partner to support, a project to develop for their benefit and the possibility of producing a mutual beneficial relationship that can sustain itself long-term. As Luu describes, successful projects rely on balance.
“There’s like this trifecta,” Luu explains. “At a very high level, it should help the community grow in ways that they want — it should help the faculty mentor study things that they’re interested in — then it should help the student develop more skills and understandings about what it’s like to do community-engaged public service.”
Students often echo this sentiment. Past fellows feel that the biggest lesson they take away from this experience is learning how to be in partnership with communities and the active learning that comes alongside that.
Great community connections take time to feel out and assess, and through providing these deadlines early on, Luu hopes that students will get the chance to take the time they need to determine their impact.
“I really just wanted to learn like, ‘Is there a better way or a different way of learning how to do work with communities in ways that really honor their commitments and really help engage in like service relationships that help center where they want to go,’” Luu says.
By Molly Nichols