The Dalai Lama Fellowship at Stanford

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.  Stanford Dalai Lama Fellows will learn from and may collaborate with fellows in this wider program. 

Applications for 2024-25 are now open. Apply by September 20, 2024.

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 begin the year with a one-day retreat the Saturday prior to the start of classes and take a 3-unit foundation course that provides models and practices for human development, LIFE 182 (Wednesdays, 1:30-4:20pm).  Fellows also begin meeting weekly for a meal (likely an early dinner), where we explore how these models and practices can help us become authentic, effective leaders. 

In the winter and spring, Fellows form teams and develop a service-oriented project, with the support of a small grant. In our 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. Stanford 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

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. In 2024-25, the Fellowship will be overseen by anthony antonio, Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education and Joonah Willihnganz, Director of the Stanford Storytelling Project, both co-founders of LifeWorks.  Fellows are mentored by faculty and staff of these units and Fellows of the Stanford Distinguished Careers Institute.