Los Angeles, CA – Through a public-private partnership created by Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa, the UCLA School of Public Affairs (UCLA-SPA), and the David Bohnett Foundation, the Office of the Mayor of Los Angeles will help train the next generation of public servants in Los Angeles by bringing graduate-level policy research fellows onto its staff beginning in the summer of 2007.

The Mayor's Fellowship Program will be a hands-on work experience for exceptionally promising public policy, social welfare, and urban planning graduate students from the UCLA School of Public Affairs (SPA).

&#34Attracting and engaging the next generation of public servants to this City is critical to the future of Los Angeles,&#34 said Mayor Villaraigosa. &#34The Mayor's Fellowship Program will give graduate students valuable hands-on work experience and provide high-level researchers to the Mayor's staff. We are grateful to the UCLA School of Public Affairs and the David Bohnett Foundation for playing a major role in providing this opportunity to hardworking graduate students for the benefit of the City of Los Angeles.&#34

In the spring, senior faculty of UCLA-SPA and senior policymakers in the Mayor's Office will meet to identify project-based fellowship opportunities for the coming academic year. Concurrently, three matriculating second-year graduate students will be selected for the fellowships. Fellowships would begin in the last week of June and continue through the summer and the following academic year, to be completed by graduation.

Fellows will be assigned a single, year-long project or a series of shorter-term projects in the policy areas of transportation, education, economic development, housing, and/or the environment.