2 Offered Coro Fellowships

April 26, 2007
Contact: Andy Faught

Two Occidental College seniors have been offered Coro Fellowships to spend nine months shadowing elected officials, department heads and chief executive officers to learn how business gets done in the social, political and economic fabric of an American city. Diplomacy and world affairs major Tuan Ngo of Santa Ana and politics major Kevin Adler of Livermore were both selected to take part in the Fellows Program in Public Affairs.

Ngo will start his fellowship this summer in San Francisco. He said he hopes to learn more about development issues in diverse communities. Ngo added that public policy officials often don’t adequately address social conditions in decision making. “I want to learn how to build a coalition among players, and bridge differences by building consensus among different communities,” he said.

Adler will bypass the fellows program to pursue a master’s degree of philosophy at Cambridge University. He plans to re-apply for the Coro program next year. “The Coro is a fantastic opportunity for young leaders to gain experience in a variety of sectors, working on meaningful projects with other team members with the overarching goal of seeing real results,” Adler said. “If I am selected for the Coro again next year, I would want to look back at my experience and say I am a better leader now than when I began.”

Ngo, meanwhile, hopes to pursue a career in which he can seek equality and equity in ethnically diverse communities. He and Adler are the 11th and 12th Occidental students since 2000 to win a Coro Fellowship.

Coro was founded in San Francisco in 1942 when W. Donald Fletcher, an attorney, and Van Duyn Dodge, an investment counselor, launched an exploration into the world of public affairs. Their premise was based on the realization that, unlike law, business or medicine, post-graduate training in the area of leadership was non-existent. The name “Coro” is the creation of its founders. It was a new word and one without association, invented to represent both discovery and exploration.