As the Cameron Institute's new Director of Community Engagement & Strategic Partnerships, Jessie Stewart looks to channel and mobilize the leadership and enthusiasm of Cal student-athletes to grow partnerships and build bridges with the greater Cal community.

A former track and cross country runner at another prestigious public institution – the University of Michigan – Stewart now gets to make sure Cal student-athletes reap all the benefits of community engagement while strengthening the athletic department's role as a partner to the greater campus community and beyond.

"When I was a student-athlete, I had an amazing athletic and academic experience, and I know I didn't take advantage of or necessarily navigate all of the additional resources that are on a campus like Cal or Michigan," Steward said. "My hope is while we are building out the longer-term framework for meaningful partnerships and long-term engagements for students and teams, that part of our work is demystifying and daylighting all of the opportunities and existing ways to get involved on campus. It's such a campus of rich resources."

After graduating from Michigan in 2007 with degrees in history and political science, Stewart embarked on a career of service. She worked as a high school history teacher and then earned her master's of community and regional planning from the University of Oregon, where she also served as a graduate teaching fellow for student-athletes. She then came to Cal to work for the UC Berkeley Center for Cities + Schools, where she engaged with schools and students in city planning and policymaking.

But where she has made her biggest impact yet is with the Richmond Promise, a college success, non-profit initiative she led as founding executive director. Richmond Promise aims to provide scholarships, partnerships and programming to support and encourage students in the city of Richmond to earn access to, and success through, higher education.

"To have that foresight and to identify a specific need, and then be able to work with the community to define a strategy to close equity gaps in a way that has demonstrated measurable success -- it mirrors what we are and are working to accomplish at Cal,," Cameron Institute Director Marissa Nichols said. "Jessie has demonstrated her ability to set a vision and structure that will allow our students and coaches to have immersive, meaningful opportunities and be trained in the skills we are working to develop."

Stewart's mission with the Cameron Institute isn't just to facilitate pathways for Cal student-athletes to serve their surrounding communities, but also to ensure the student-athletes are being enriched by the process themselves. The Cameron Institute aims to be a beacon in the community, and by doing so the student-athletes doing the work will engage in holistic development.

"When you're in service to community, you're in service to yourself in many ways, as well," Stewart said. "When I think about developing a real authentic and world-class model for community engagement, it needs to be reciprocal, student and community centered, and rooted in equity identifying the unique interest and value-add that our student-athlete community can provide for our larger community, and equally as important, what our community has defined for itself – including gaps, barriers and pathways to opportunity.

The addition of Stewart rounds out the directors for each pillar of the Cameron Institute – along with Leadership & Professional Development, High-Performance & Well-Being, and Career Development.

"I'm grateful for a world-class team, which will propel us to be a world-class Institute," Nichols said. "I'm so excited for Jessie to come in and integrate with our directors, and make significant progress this year in fully launching this pillar. We recognize our presence in the community, and the transformative experience we can ignite for our students, coaches and staff is a fundamental part of the Cameron Institute."