"If I were a car that was running 80 miles per hour before, the Revson year allowed me to pull over by the roadside and check out the map. It was a fascinating year of sorting out my thoughts and reflecting on the meaning of what I wanted to do for my future endeavors."

"Throughout this Revson year, I traveled through this journey with compassionate, interesting, and stimulating fellows, and their stories and projects opened my eyes to new experiences."

"Courses, camaraderie, community--the fellowship provided all three in an engaging fashion. I thought as a mid-career professional I would feel out of synch with the students but their perspectives challenged me and the professors, the books I would have never read on my own and the guest speakers refreshed and enlivened my thinking and work practices. The fellowship felt like a sabbatical--only it took place on-campus."

"The Revson Program is an unparalleled opportunity for committed New Yorkers to refuel-through conversations, classes, projects and reflection. For me, the Revson year provided a much-needed pause to assess the past and plan for the future, with guidance and support from the academic and activist communities. At the end of the year, I emerged stronger and clearer about my work goals, and personally more enriched and replenished by new relationships with colleagues and professors. With the Revson network and annual meetings to look forward to, the program keeps sustaining those of us working to make New York City a better place to live for all New Yorkers."

"In the Revson program and in these classes, I’ve had the opportunity to think about my work, how I as a “medium” shape the message, and learn new ways to analyze these things and better express them in new ways to people I’ve never met before."

"My year as a Revson Fellow was undeniably a productive experience from which I was able to benefit significantly. It afforded me a unique opportunity for the in-depth examination of child-care services in New York City and for the detailed analysis of public policies influencing the administration of the Human Resources Administration and its Agency for Child Development."

"As a Revson Fellow I had the unique opportunity to experience the academic environment of Columbia University and learn from the real world experiences of the Revson cohort. My year as a Revson Fellow allowed me to grow professionally at the same time providing a well needed respite from my advocacy work. I was able to renew my commitment to public service and return to work rejuvenated."

"The Revson year gave me the opportunity to immerse myself in education reform literature, engage in a year-long analysis of reform proposals, and through coursework, readings, and discussion with Teachers College faculty and students, develop my own ideas about how urban public schools might be improved. The program allowed me to make a critical transition in both where and how I'd previously worked."

"Growth and risk-taking have been the underlying themes for my experience at Columbia, compelling me to step out of my comfort zone along this academic expedition. "

"As I look back, I am aware of just how "formative" my Revson year was for me. Much of my energy and new ideas for a church-based response to poverty, racism, unemployment, and violence came out of the debates and discussions with the Revson Fellows in my class. One of the most neglected human resources in the city is the activists. The Revson Program redresses this critical imbalance, believing that democracy and public policy will be qualitatively improved if activists return to their communities with newly acquired skills, refined insights, and an informal network of new friends."

"I spent the spring semester studying finance, accounting and economics…I find that I am now more conversant on current economic trends and literally read the newspaper every day with a different and more sophisticated perspective."

"I have come out of my Revson year with a new vision for integrating history, memory, social struggle, and the arts that I am committed to developing over the next few years. "

"The Revson year gave me a chance to see the parallels between the low-income communities I"

"The willingness of this group of ten strangers to share their feelings of vulnerability, hope for change, sense of humor and sense of hope was nothing short of inspiring."

"Revson was a glorious, guiltless, officially sanctioned and supported year of immersion into lectures, good conversation, and the bottomless yield of Columbia's impressive libraries. It made a gift of that most precious commodity of all: time. Nor could it have been delivered in better company or in more congenial surroundings. We ate together, talked endlessly, traded on our elevated status to bug professors for tutorials, and forged friendships that endure to this day."

"The opportunity to write something not for a funder, not a proposal, not an “outcome-driven” success story, not focused on the numbers, not a new formula for crunching the numbers: it was delicious. It felt like sanity. Like my mind returning to my mind."

"What being at Columbia University has done for me is confirm my interest in people of the world; the opportunity to attend classes with students from all over the world has been a life altering experience. "

"In addition to classes in oral history, learning in adulthood, gender, music, I also took time to attend number of conferences and present my work to the scholarly community."

"Raise one up for the Revson, which immersed me in ideas and space and thought and people, from the plough to the stars."

"My fellowship year provided me with the opportunity to test myself in new ways by engaging in academic studies and thinking more deeply about the issues with which we struggle on a daily basis. Taking the time to stretch myself intellectually has been incredibly rewarding, particularly within the context of the fellowship. I was honored to be a part of this cohort, all of the fellows were wonderfully supportive and interesting people and it was a gift to meet and work with each of them, as well as the Revson staff. It has been a wonderful year and I feel reinvigorated about my work as well as looking forward to continuing academic studies."

"If the purpose of travel is to know oneself better when one returns home, then this year of exploration through the worlds of Columbia—this sabbatical—has been a wonderful voyage, and I look forward to seeing what reveals itself when I disembark."

"I have acquired a more nuanced perspective for how U.S. cities have evolved over time and how this history informs and affects our current situation. With a better framework of understanding, I can now refocus my energies on working to improve housing conditions and health outcomes with a clearer vision and sense of purpose."

"The past nine months have provided an unparalleled opportunity to step outside of the confines of an organizational agenda and mission statement and to explore, from every angle, issues raised by in my work as an advocate over the past ten years."

"More than anything that Columbia had to offer, I feel that I've lived 9 new lives vicariously through the 9 other fellows. These are the 9 lives struggling and working for the City, while I was too, that I never knew about. My horizon has been broadened through which I would never have gotten in my classrooms. [Robin is a Master's degree candidate at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs and the Mailman School of Public Health.]"

"At different moments during the school year, each of the fellows offered the words of encouragement or insightful criticism that I needed to keep going, to feel that I was doing the work that needed to be done."

"The Revson Fellows program provides a perfect mixture of structure and freedom to create an unparalleled boost to professional and personal development of mid-career people engaged in the New York City."

"I had been working as a freelance journalist for over a decade. In some ways I was stymied and at a crossroads, trying to figure out how to more effectively write about the issues I was covering, how to broaden my understanding of the way the city is run and why, and ways in which I could reach a larger and broader audience. While a Fellow I took courses in urban planning, political science, law, ethno-musicology, and creative Writing. The courses strengthened my understanding of the ways politics, law, culture, and the urban environment intersect, giving me a grasp of the factors that contribute to whether or not that intersection results in conflict or community. One of the major benefits for me of the year spent as a Revson Fellow was interacting with the other Fellows. From them I got information, smarter, new perspectives, different ways of viewing events. As important, I began friendships and alliances that have lasted to this day. A community of activists/friends whom I can call on for advice, support, and understanding, and not merely of the political kind."

"Taking full advantage of Columbia’s resources, my self-study plan included coursework on race and ethnic inequality, urban education, social movements, early childhood development, and modern dance history. The discipline of reading, writing, discussing, researching, and reflecting each week upon these diverse but interrelated areas made for an extraordinary year."

"The Program gave me an opportunity to reflect on my community organizing experience and career options. There, I met other seasoned advocates who believed that all available tools especially street activism and grassroots organizing must be used to advance progressive causes and agendas."

"I still primarily think of myself as a union organizer, but its been transformative for me to develop interests and ideas and interests that aren't quite as big as the union but are important in small ways to me, like learning to play piano or talking about theology with the graduate students at Union Theological Seminary. "

"Coming at a time when my nonprofit organization was on the verge of extinction, the Fellowship enabled me to cobble together a strategy for survival, while acquiring the skills, credentials, and self-confidence to begin the transformation of the National Federation of Community Development Credit Unions. Three years later, a New York State Community Development Financial Institutions Fund was established through my organization's efforts. The fellowship year marked a turning point in my professional life; today, in the rear-view mirror, it remains a very prominent landmark and point of orientation."

"The program helped not only by enhancing my skills as an advocate, but also by plugging me into a dynamic community for social change. Sitting on the Revson selection committee, I have had a unique perspective. I know the incredible quality of the people applying to be Revsons and what they are contributing to the city. A generation of activists has been refreshed and energized and sharpened by the Program."

"Revson Program graduates now comprise the core of New York's most effective social change agents. We work in, out and around government to recreate the City of New York in accordance with a model that many of us conceive of, or develop while in the Revson Program."

"Revson's greatest benefit to me was the opportunity to learn and grow professionally with a diverse group of spirited, contentious, challenging, and stimulating peers whose only common denominator was a commitment to make New York City a better place."

"The Revson experience is as rejuvenating as it is enriching. It widens our individual networks considerably and allows each of us the opportunity to be both a teacher and a learner. For many of us, the Program restores balance in our lives and renews our sense of commitment for the long haul."

"What I can say for sure is that something big has happened to me, I know this because everything feels very different. Maybe this year has chipped away at some of my jaded edges and left me feeling a little more optimistic about the world."

"The Revson year was an opportunity to recharge mental and spiritual batteries, to deepen my own understanding of important issues at what turned out to be a crucial time in our history, and to do so in the company of committed co-conspirators in the quest for peace and justice. It brings the enormous resources of a great university to the Fellows and time to reflect on how we can best utilize that knowledge to make a better New York City and world."

"The Revson Fellowship has forced me to question basic assumptions, pushed me outside of my comfort zone on numerous occasions, allowed me to think about personal and career goals in a whole new light..."

"My effectiveness in my current position owes a great deal to my experience as a Revson Fellow. First, of course, was the superb academic instruction I received. But equally important is the way I learned to truly appreciate the full range of other people's perspectives and insights. As a Fellow, I was presented with such a diversity of opinions on issues that bore directly or indirectly on my work that I gained enormous skills in working with people of different viewpoints. I continue to see Revson Fellows regularly and rely on the informal Revson network when I need new information or insights."