Taking Student Leadership to New Heights with BLI Grants

The BLI provides resources to members through grant possibilities that reinforce student initiative, the importance of learning from real-world experience, and the integral roles of reflection, collaboration, and active engagement with communities. The BLI Grants team, led by Applied Leadership Fellow, Aayana Anand and Program Specialist, Shea Ankers, funded 45 student-led projects and student professional development experiences this academic year, totaling a record $54,717. 

The BLI is grateful to be able to offer this support to our student community as they pursue passion projects and experiences that develop their leadership development for work both on and off campus.  The range of team projects and professional development was vast, and some highlights from this year include supporting,

Aleena Malik’s team in launching the Interfaith Exploration Program. The team’s objective was to create a more inclusive, empathetic, and knowledgeable campus community by allowing students to gain first-hand experience with what it is like to practice different faiths. The BLI grant helped to fund costs such as program advertising, meals for attendees, and Uber transportation to and from the event for those without a car. Learn more in the experiences in this Michigan Daily article feature.

Asmita Tuladhar and their team published POSA (Portrait of South Asia), the first South-Asian-centered magazine published by a new student organization on campus with a mission to share authentic stories through photographic narratives. The grant enables the team to guarantee that the stories being shared are portrayed in a way that is inclusive, authentic and to the best of their ability. Follow them on Instagram to stay up to date on future publications and read about their experience and successes in the BLI Student Voices blog.

Brian Afonso and the PeriOperative team. They are part of the M-Heal organization, whose objective is to engineer new and innovative products that address overlooked issues in underserved communities. The PeriOperative project team is developing a product to mitigate the effects of perioperative hypothermia in the Dominican Republic, and in the process, they hope to ameliorate some of the inequalities that inevitably occur in the medical profession. The BLI grant will help the team return to the Dominican Republic in Spring 2024 to meet with the healthcare systems they've worked with since 2016, showcase their updated prototype, and get more feedback. Find out more about the background and overview of the PeriOperative team on their website. 

The Technique team (Lara Janosz, Olivia Habart, Abhinav Iyer, Elisha Cooper, Maxwell Wen, and Saarang Suryavanshi) whose idea started as a sticky note in the BLI leadership Lab in the fall of 2023 which read, help under-resourced students increase employability with tech literacy. Now with two semesters under its belt, it's an organization who has created artificial intelligence-powered gadgets and hosted student-focused events with representatives from Apple and OpenAI, two of the biggest tech giants in the world. The BLI Leadership Lab and the accompanying grant helped the team accomplish their initial goals, and they were accepted into the BLI Social Transformation Fellowship (STF) commencing this fall. This opportunity will help them to continue their goal to personalize the technology learning experience for each individual in order to spur a more inclusive upskilling environment and optimize tech upskilling based on individual preferences. Explore the project deeper in the BLI Student Voices blog Post, and expect to hear more from this group as they move forward in STF.

Ellis Brehme in their work on faculty-supported research with Dr. Rebecca Irvine, Creating Transparency in the Numbers: How Many Native People are Really Missing? The project involves the careful collection and sorting of missing Indigenous person cases from national and statewide databases, websites, and online groups, along with mapping the data to support the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) movement. The BLI Leadership Grant helps support Ellis in their work over the 2024-25 academic year. Acceptance into the 2024 BLI Social Transformation Fellowship (STF) cohort allows them to deepen their understanding of and support their commitment to the MMIP crisis in the US. Be on the lookout for more exciting updates from this project in the near future.

These are only a handful of incredible experiences the BLI has supported this year. Learn more about the other impressive projects and ventures in BLI Student Voices blog!