While some students spend their summers watching television or lounging on the beach, this year’s cohort of Royce Fellows traveled across the world to pursue projects ranging from advocating abortion rights to exploring the archaeological remains of ancient Turkey. In a few weeks, they will begin to share their work with the community through a series of panels.

Each year, the Royce Fellowship, funded by Chuck Royce ’61 P’92 P’94 P’08, allows about 20 students to pursue “really imaginative and crazy, interesting ideas,” said Kerrissa Heffernan, the director of the fellowship.

Between 60 and 80 students apply for the fellowship, which provides $4,000 in funding for fellows to undertake summer projects of their design anywhere in the world. “Fellowships are funding the scholar,” Heffernan said. “Sometimes the committee will even fund things they think will fail. … They’re probably going to go down in flames, but let’s see what happens,” she added. Heffernan said they choose scholars who they think will benefit from engaging with the Royce community and who will grow from their experiences.