Svoboda Legal Scholars Summer Program – more information on program website
St. Olaf College’s Svoboda Legal Scholars Program offers an opportunity for a select group of undergraduate students to perform intensive legal research and serve in a legal support role to social impact oriented clinics at the University of Minnesota, Mitchell Hamline, University of Iowa, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and University of St. Thomas schools of law. Selected students will have the opportunity to contribute to the work of the clinic under the direction of the clinic director/law school faculty member. Through involvement in this program, students will become more knowledgeable about the field of law and legal services while providing valuable contributions to legal clinics serving diverse, under-resourced populations. This program is supported by the generosity of Paul Svoboda ’81.
2021 Video
Social Impact Scholars
The Scott Kloeck-Jenson Social Impact Scholars program provides an opportunity for 10 rising juniors and seniors to explore social impact careers, gain professional experience and develop as leaders. Students complete a full-time internship with a social impact organization in the Twin Cities while participating in regular academic and career reflection with fellow students, faculty, community leaders and alumni.
St. Olaf Entrepreneurial Scholars
The St. Olaf Entrepreneurial Scholars program pairs rising sophomore, junior, and senior students with summer internships in entrepreneurial ventures. Through opportunities with entrepreneurial alumni, accelerators, incubators, and venture capital firms, students gain experience working in a startup environment while receiving mentorship and support from their host supervisor.
2019 Video
CURI – Program Details
The St. Olaf Collaborative Undergraduate Research and Inquiry (CURI) program provides opportunities for St. Olaf students from all academic disciplines to gain an in-depth understanding of a particular subject through working closely with a St. Olaf faculty member in a research framework.
We aim to promote and facilitate undergraduate research in all its forms by supporting students and faculty with various research opportunities during both the summer and the academic year, and by providing funding for students to present the results of their research at conferences or in other appropriate venues.
Weber Scholars
The great social theorist Max Weber (1864-1920) offered these words above during the first of two lectures he delivered to a group of students in Munich on January 28, 1919. For Weber, an untrammeled investigation of truth required openness to entertaining propositions, proposals, theories, ideas that might be inconvenient, unpleasant or unpopular. This seminar, led by Morrison Family Director of the Institute for Freedom and Community, is designed to acquaint students with moral, political and social ideas that challenge comfortable partisan opinions or reigning orthodoxies in the academy.
The seminar invites students into a bold free-thinking project but also offers a supportive environment for expressing and considering views out of the academic mainstream. What counts as “out of the mainstream” is, of course, contextual, and will depend on circumstances at a particular point in time.
Building on the discussions, dialogue, and discourse of The Weber Seminar, participants will pursue their own individualized research projects that reflect in a substantial and concentrated way a strong critical engagement with the content of the seminar. The individual research component of the Weber Summer Scholars Program will thus allow students to develop their research practices, writing skills, and creative energies around a singular and specialized area of study that intersects with the moral, political and social ideas presented during the seminar. Immersing oneself in a research project full-time will not only result in more learning about the subject of study, but it will also develop critical thinking skills and competencies. Students will have the opportunity to present their work in a virtual conference-style format while also sharing insights with one another.