Moelis Scholars Program at UPenn

Planning students Eboni Senai Hawkins and Sean Dajour Smith are the Weitzman School’s first Moelis Scholars

The University of Pennsylvania kicked off the inaugural Moelis Scholars Program earlier this year. The program aims to support African American and Latinx students who are thinking about pursuing careers in housing, community and economic development. UPenn, which is also my alma mater, highlighted the new program in its 66^th edition of its weekly almanac earlier this month.

The goal of the Moelis Scholars Program is twofold: we want to bring people from a range of backgrounds into the planning discipline as well as help them find a way into the private development world.

To facilitate that goal, the program pairs students with a mentor faculty member, and eventually with an alumnus of the program. Additionally, the program provides the students a full academic scholarship to the Stuart Weitzman School of Design and will help the scholars find paid summer internships, provide funding to attend the annual National Planning Conference and also give them a year’s membership in the American Planning Association after they finish the master’s program.

The scholarship is designed to build a community of like-minded UPenn students who are pursuing careers in planning and development so they can learn from each other and support each other’s growth. I met with two of the scholars, Eboni Hawkins and Sean Smith, at the beginning of the semester and I look forward to working with them during the program and watching them support and guide future Moelis Scholars.