Selected Fellows will work together from October 2025 to July 2026 to expand their networks and engage in peer learning, self-reflection, and strategic analysis that will support their work to improve job quality in the South. Through this cohort, we hope to uplift the efforts of forward-thinking job quality practitioners who can inspire others in the South and nationwide who are striving to bring about an economy that works for all.

The Economic Opportunities Program convened the inaugural class of Job Quality Fellows in 2017, and inducted its second class of Fellows in 2018. Current support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Prudential Financial, and Surdna Foundation. Founding support from the Prudential Financial and the Ford Foundation.

The post Job Quality Fellows, Class of 2025-26 appeared first on The Aspen Institute.

Joining with Artist-Endowed Foundations nationally, the Aspen Institute Artist-Endowed Foundations Initiative | AEFI stood with the Los Angeles arts community amid the devastating loss and displacement it experienced as the wildfires of early 2025 swept the region.

Over the course of five weeks, donors helped raise more than $15 million for the collaborative Getty Foundation-led LA Arts Community Fire Relief Fund.

Artists and art workers in LA who sought emergency support from this fund did so through its administrator, the Center for Cultural Innovation.

The post In Support of the Los Angeles Arts Community – January 2025 appeared first on The Aspen Institute.

Act III: Leadership and Legacy Laureates Program

From Success to Significance to Consequence

“The difficulty of our time is a difficulty of the human spirit.” 

These words, shared during the Aspen Institute’s founding 75 years ago, marked a world damaged by division, in need of recovery and renewal, yet committed to confronting the challenges ahead. The moment called for humanistic leadership that encouraged self-reflection and self-critique, inspired dialogue and connection, and expanded the possibilities for a better future.

Today, as ever, we urgently look to those lessons.

Many proven leaders—who have transformed markets and industries, discovered technological and scientific breakthroughs, and shaped policy and public discourse—find themselves at this pivotal moment in our history asking deeper questions. They are compelled to channel their purpose, experience, and resources toward bold, enduring impact at scale. But today’s challenges cannot be solved in isolation. The complexity of our time demands cross-sector collaboration, cross-cultural understanding, and a steadfast commitment to values-driven, human-centered leadership.

The Act III: Leadership and Legacy Laureates program—a new initiative of the Aspen Global Leadership Network (AGLN)—answers that call. 

The Act III program is designed for distinguished leaders from varied sectors, cultures, and geographies, convening a select cohort—drawing on AGLN Fellows, Nobel Peace Prize recipients, and other exceptional changemakers—to exchange with one another as they build on lessons learned to shape legacies of deep consequence.

Through two immersive Aspen seminars, ongoing engagement, and lifelong fellowship, Laureates will revisit and recommit to their values and stretch themselves in daring and courageous ways, using their talent and resources to forge pathways to address the most pressing and systemic issues of our time.

Stay Tuned

As the 2025–2026 program unfolds, we will share reflections, insights, and breakthroughs from the Laureates—capturing the evolution of their leadership and the catalytic ideas and actions taking shape.

The Act III: Leadership and Legacy Laureates program is generously supported by the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, which works to ensure the equitable benefits of a growing economy extend to everyone, everywhere. 

The post Act III: Leadership and Legacy Laureates Program appeared first on The Aspen Institute.

If you wish to be nominated or plan to nominate a candidate for Class 8, please review this link for important information and be sure to submit the 2025 Nomination Form by Sunday, March 9.

The Aspen Institute Finance Leaders Fellowship (FLF) is galvanizing a community of senior finance leaders to marshal the industry’s vast resources and influence to address systemic challenges and advance a more just and equitable society. Since its founding in 2016 by Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellow, Ranji Nagaswami, and Aspen Institute Trustee, Chris Varelas, FLF has launched seven classes of Fellows and inspired 148 Fellows across 24 countries to use finance as a force for societal good. 

Working across the foremost financial markets and institutions worldwide, and representing a dynamic cross section of industry sectors, FLF Fellows are key decision-makers managing vital gears within the intricate machinery of global finance. During their two-year leadership journey, through intimate dialogues and deep introspection, Fellows are empowered to cultivate a lasting commitment to values-driven leadership and challenged to embrace the responsibility and opportunity they have as industry leaders to use finance as a force for societal good. 

The post Copy of Finance Leaders Fellowship appeared first on The Aspen Institute.

Photo by Lauren Desberg

Teddy Abrams will serve as the Aspen Institute Arts Program 2025/26 Harman/Eisner Artist in Residence. In this role, Abrams will offer his artistic vision to various Policy Programs, events, leadership activities and more in Aspen, New York, Washington D.C., and elsewhere.

“I am thrilled and honored to serve as the Aspen Institute’s Artist in Residence this year. Connecting music with diverse disciplines and collaborating with leaders in different fields has long been a passion of mine, and Aspen provides the ideal platform for interdisciplinary thinking and bold creative ideas to flourish,” Abrams said. 

Abrams is a Grammy-winning classical musician and Musical America’s 2022 Conductor of the Year. Serving as Louisville Orchestra’s Music Director since September 2014–as the youngest Director in its 88-year history– Abrams paved the way for community outreach with the “In Harmony” tour throughout Kentucky. In April 2023, Abrams premiered his own composition Mammoth with Yo-Yo Ma in Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave, and in 2024 his piano concerto for Yuja Wang won a Grammy Award. Abrams is now at work on ALI, a new musical about Muhammad Ali that blends and an orchestral work that tells the story of the state of Kentucky, to premiere in the 2025–26 season.

More about Teddy Abrams:

Teddy Abrams, born in 1987, is a Grammy Award winner and Musical America’s 2022 Conductor of the Year. He was appointed and has served as Louisville Orchestra’s (LO) Music Director in September 2014 and has been profiled by CBS Sunday Morning, the New Yorker, NPR, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and PBS NewsHour.

Abrams’s achievements include the Louisville Orchestra Creators Corps, a trailblazing initiative that provides a fully funded residency for three composers who receive local housing, a salary, health benefits and dedicated workspaces; and the “In Harmony” tour, a multi-season community-building project on a giant scale funded by the Commonwealth of Kentucky that takes the orchestra to every corner of the state for concerts and special community events. Deemed by the New York Times as a “Maestro of the People,” Abrams “has embedded himself in his community, breaking the mold of modern conductors.”

A prolific and award-winning composer himself, Abrams – as part of the Emerson Collective Fellowship – will compose an orchestral work to premiere in the Louisville Orchestra’s 2025–26 season that tells the story of the state of Kentucky. The raw material for the piece will come from community sessions Abrams leads on visits around the state: time spent with Kentuckians music-making, storytelling, and sharing local history.

In 2025, Abrams will also make his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and guest conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, and Curtis Symphony Orchestra. This past summer, Abrams returned to the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the second consecutive year and conducted NYO2 at Carnegie Hall’s World Orchestra Week! (WOW!).

Abrams served as Assistant Conductor of the Detroit Symphony (2012–14), as Resident Conductor of Hungary’s MAV Symphony Orchestra (2011-2012), and as Conducting Fellow and Assistant Conductor of the New World Symphony (2008–11).

The post 2025/26 Harman/Eisner Artist in Residence appeared first on The Aspen Institute.

Overview

Trellis Foundation and UpSkill America at the Aspen Institute are excited to announce a new opportunity designed to support innovations in nursing education. Working with the support of a learning community, 8-10 partners will be selected to participate in a three-year initiative facilitated by UpSkill America that will work to achieve the following objectives:

• Enable nursing students working in healthcare environments to earn credit toward their clinical requirements through work. The Texas Board of Nursing Education Guideline 3.7.4 enables nursing students to meet clinical hours requirements through employment, based on the development of a partnership arrangement between the education provider and employer partner.
• Identify and address policies and practices that are restricting nursing students’ ability to complete academic and clinical requirements while also holding a job (in healthcare or otherwise). This may include shifting didactic learning online, creating more flexible clinical placement schedules, development regional clinical placement and faculty recruitment systems, and other approaches.

Eligibility

• Organizations eligible to apply include public and private non-profit institutions of higher education in Texas. Institutions that are based outside of Texas but serve Texas students may also apply, but the proposed work must occur in the state and impact local students. In geographies where work is best coordinated outside of postsecondary institutions, particularly rural communities, workforce boards may apply as the lead.
• Training organizations and non-profit community-based organizations that support nursing students and for-profit businesses and organizations are not eligible to serve as the lead organization, though may be involved and supported through funded projects.

Application Process and Documentation

• For detailed information about the initiative, read the one pager.
• For additional context on this initiative, read the overview.
• To understand the origins of this work, read the white paper.
• To access the application, click here.
• To access the budget template, click here.

Application submission checklist:

• Application
• IRS Determination letter
• W9
• Latest 2 years of audited financial statements
• Budget template

Application and all supporting materials must be emailed to TXhealthcare@aspeninstitute.org by 5:00 PM CT on May 16th.

Timeline

• May 16 – Application and proposal forms due by 5:00 PM CT
• June 30 – Applicants notified
• July 31 – Grant agreements signed
• August 15 – Grant payments dispersed

Webinar

FAQs

For frequently asked questions, click here.

Please direct all other questions to TXhealthcare@aspeninstitute.org

The post Streamlining Success in Nursing Training Programs in Texas appeared first on The Aspen Institute.

In the meantime, check out “Our Staff” here.

The post Leadership and Team appeared first on The Aspen Institute.