USD Student Kapri Tulang-De Silva Honored as Newman Civic Fellow

Campus Compact, a Boston-based non-profit organization working to advance the public purpose of higher education has announced the students who will make up the organization's 2021-2022 cohort of Newman Civic Fellows. Kapri Tulang-De Silva, third-year student at the University of San Diego, will join 211 other students from 39 states, Washington, D.C., and Mexico to form the 2021 cohort.

Kapri Tulang-De Silva

“I am so blessed and humbled for the chance to be renewed in my passion for cultural awareness and social justice,” said Tulang-De Silva, who will be participating in the year-long Newman Civic Fellowship program. Students selected for the fellowship are leaders on their campuses who demonstrate a commitment to finding solutions for challenges facing communities locally, nationally and internationally.

Tulang-De Silva, a native of Hawaii, is a liberal studies major with a concentration in psychology. Tulang-De Silva is also a USD MacDonald Scholar who pays it forward, volunteering her time and talents as a mentor and tutor at Montgomery Middle School and Kit Carson Elementary School.  For Tulang-De Silva, uplifting communities is ingrained in her mind, body, and soul — and an expression of her Hawaiian heritage.

Tulang-De Silva comes from a family of immigrants who worked as plantation and taro patch workers in Hilo, Hawaiʻi and Keanae, Mauʻi.  In her service work, she has embraced the roots and heritage set forth by her ancestors by exemplifying and embodying the value of kahiau.  The Hawaiian principle of kahiau means “give generously or lavishly with the heart and not with expectation of return,” shared Tulang-De Silva.

"Kapri exudes a great level of sincerity and kindness and lives her values daily through her ethical, compassionate and authentic service to others,” said Austin Galy, assistant director of student leadership and learning at USD’s Mulvaney Center for Community, Awareness and Social Action, who nominated Tulang-De Silva for the fellowship.  Galy went on to share that “Kapri’s approach to community and civic engagement is emblematic of her leadership style — one grounded in empathy and collaboration, always working to support and uplift those who are most systematically disenfranchised.”

Frank Newman, after whom the Newman Civic Fellowship is named, once served alongside USD President James T. Harris III on the National Commission on Service-Learning during President Clinton’s administration.  Remembering his late friend and colleague, Harris shared that, “There was no greater advocate for promoting the democratic ideals of higher education than Frank Newman. It was my good fortune to know and serve with Dr. Newman. He was a remarkable critical thinker with a great sense of humor and I believe he was one of the great leaders of American higher education in the second half of the 20th century.”

Campus Compact is a national coalition of colleges and universities committed to the public purposes of higher education.  Campus Compact is the largest national higher education association dedicated solely to campus-based civic engagement by supporting institutions in fulfilling their public purposes.

— Lissette Martinez and Nick Stineman '22