2021 Eye to Eye Fellows

Meet the 2021 Eye to Eye Fellows!

Each year thousands of students answer the call to serve by joining Eye to Eye as mentors, mentees, ambassadors, and advocates for those who learn differently. While most of Eye to Eye’s work takes place in classrooms across the country, our Fellowship Program allows exceptional high school and college students to complete an in-depth independent research project related to the world of learning disabilities. Each Fellow has worked closely with a member of the Eye to Eye leadership team this summer to design, research, and implement a project of their choosing. The Fellows and their projects are highlighted below!

Jillian Rothman 

Jillian is a senior at Connecticut College and is majoring in theater and double minoring in human development and psychology. She is a proud different learner and brings her enthusiasm for community building to her work as an Eye to Eye mentor, as well! Jillian has an extensive background in the arts and brought this knowledge to her Fellowship project where she interviewed several LD artists about how arts education has positively impacted their lives and careers. Her tipping point question was how can arts education be used to improve the lives of students who learn differently. Want to learn more? Check out her project below.

Drew Frank

Drew joined the Fellowship program after a year of mentoring at the University of Colorado – Boulder Eye to Eye Chapter! Drew is now a senior, studying business, but still finds time to be a chapter leader with Eye to Eye. He saw how valuable peer mentoring is for students who learn differently, and sought to create a digital extension of Eye to Eye’s incredible storytelling. Drew is actively accepting submissions for the account, so if you’d like to share your story and be featured please direct message him via Instagram. You can check out the amazing Instagram storytelling account, “Eye Here You” below!

Connor Flanagan

Connor joined the Fellowship Program after becoming an intern at Eye to Eye’s annual Organizing Institute conference, where he discovered the boundless possibilities of our community of different learners. Connor is a senior in high school, but already has his eye on his future in college and beyond. Often students who learn differently get met with stories of failure and struggle, but in designing his Fellowship project, Connor wondered if there were commonalities among highly successful CEOs like Vanessa Kirsch of NewProfit and Morgan Dixon of GirlTrek, and others. He focused his research on finding out this question and learned a great deal about how to use one’s learning disability to an advantage. Curious about his learnings? Check out the video below!

Caroline 

Caroline is a soon-to-be graduate of Rollins College and a lifelong advocate for different learners. She came to the Fellowship Program with a desire to combine two of her passions: youth justice and learning disability advocacy. Caroline researched the role that learning disabilities play in the outcomes of incarcerated youth, and how various people and organizations are seeking to improve the experience of young people in the justice system. Due to the sensitive nature of her topic and research, we have opted to not make her research public. Caroline shared her incredible findings at a Fellowship Roundtable discussion earlier in the fall, where she noted that her Fellowship experience has prompted her to seek out graduate school so that she may continue her incredible advocacy work for young people who learn differently. You can check out a brief description of her project, and why this is so important to Caroline and others by viewing the segment here!