Five JMC School students selected for 2025 Millennium Fellowship

LAWRENCE – More than 60,000 students from 7,500 institutions worldwide applied for the 2025 Millennium Fellowship, which had an acceptance rate of about 7%. Among those who earned the fellowship are five students from the University of Kansas William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications. Each of them will complete a semester-long project.

The fellowship is a leadership development program overseen by the Millennium Campus Network (MCN) in partnership with United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI). Read more about it in this KU news release.

Among the programs, more than 4,000 students, who together represent more than 290 campuses in 47 nations, are the following KU JMC School fellows:

• Taylor Doyle, a senior in global & international studies, political science and multimedia journalism from Shawnee. 
• Antoniqué Flemons, a senior in digital marketing communications, advertising & public relations from Kansas City, Missouri. 
• Jaden Huehl, a junior in secondary English education and multimedia journalism from Sylvan Grove. 
• Hannah Loub, a senior in global & international studies and multimedia journalism from Manhattan. 
• Sydney Wynia, a sophomore in digital marketing communications, advertising & public relations and Spanish from Lindstrom, Minnesota.  

Taylor Doyle and Hannah Loub

Both pre-law students, Doyle and Loub plan to work together in their Millennium Fellowship project. They applied for the fellowship with a proposal to provide resources for students studying for the LSAT test, a standardized test for law school candidates.

“We saw when we were studying for the LSAT the need for financial aid and resources in order for everyone to be able to access the LSAT materials,” Doyle said.

“We plan to assemble LSAT study resources for pre-law students and match them with lawyers in the community to give them a leg up,” Loub added. “Studying for the LSAT is overwhelming, and it’s hard to find resources.”

Doyle, a leadership minor, hopes that the fellowship will provide another opportunity to grow as a leader and give her a chance to demonstrate her leadership abilities in a different setting. 

“It’s a great opportunity to be able to work on my leadership skills and translate that better when I’m applying for jobs,” Doyle said. 

Loub, on the other hand, realizes the fellowship provides a unique opportunity to build connections as she applies for international fellowship opportunities between finishing her undergraduate degree and starting law school.

“This fellowship will give me the chance to network with people who have similar interests to me and expose me to roles that I wouldn’t have even known about,” Loub said. “I’m excited to get started on this project and grateful to be part of such an amazing group of people at KU.”

Antoniqué Flemons

Flemons learned to sew from her grandmother when she was in middle school, and her passion for sustainability blossomed from there.

“Sustainability is super important, I, however, was introduced to it through creativity,” Flemons said. “During the pandemic, I did a couple of sewing programs and learned more about the overproduction of clothes and how it’s impacting the world even when we don’t see it.

“I think that learning how to sew is a valuable skill that could be very useful in society today. Prioritizing ethically made goods and understanding quality over quantity is important.”

Flemons’ project is centered around circularity and sustainability within fashion for the City of Lawrence, Douglas County and The University of Kansas. She will be participating in the revamping and opening of a clothing store targeted to expecting mothers and children and hopefully holding space for adolescents and teens.

“I know it (sustainability) is the way of the future,” Flemons said. “Climate control is a continuously growing problem, and it’s important to control our controllables. Where we get our clothes, how we make them and how we show up are things we can control. It’s just about creating good skills for people and being mindful about the Earth you live on.”

In addition to the fellowship, Flemons will also be part of the Coach Dream It Real x Coachtopia Scholars Class of 2025, where she will contribute to global conversations around fashion and sustainability with the Coach brand. She will provide updates on her project and her journey with the fellowship on her show, Brains and Beauties.

Jaden Huehl

When Huehl is given an essay assignment, she often chooses a topic she’s not familiar with so she can learn about it. As a 16-year-old high school student, she overheard a conversation about foster care, leading her to choose it as a topic for a speech. As it turns out, that essay helped Huehl find a topic that she is truly passionate about and something that she believes should be a more pressing issue in the United States: Children’s rights.

“Writing that speech made me realize that this was a huge issue that affects way more than just these kids,” Huehl said.

Huehl, whose career goals include becoming a children’s rights advocacy lawyer, is honing in on that passion with the long-term goal of creating policy change on a national level for her project by kickstarting a foster care educational mentor program. She has partnered with two local agencies, Foster Village and Homeworks USA, to focus on filling the educational gaps for foster children and teaching them life skills.

When Huehl spoke to foster children who were high school graduates, the most common piece of feedback she received was that they didn't have a consistent mentor because they moved around so often.

“My project will really focus on getting foster kids a mentor who is in the area,” Huehl said. “If they move houses or locations, which happens a lot, they can still have that same mentor. This is helping on the educational side and social-emotional side.”

Sydney Wynia

Wynia is just one of five sophomores at KU to earn the fellowship, which she applied for in November 2024.

“When I did get the email, I was really, really shocked,” Wynia said. “It’s going to be a lot of work, but I’m excited for it.” 

As part of the fellowship, Wynia will expand on work she began in high school when she launched a podcast, “Paddle On,” to educate people on the Boundary Waters in Minnesota. The Boundary Waters is the largest Wilderness east of the Rockies and north of the Everglades and is a place she frequently visited with her father.

The inspiration for the podcast and eventually the Millennium Fellowship project came from visits during COVID. The Boundary Waters became a popular getaway spot for people looking for an outdoor activity, but the campgrounds, known for water so clean that people “dip their cups straight into the waters,” were trashed because of the increased foot traffic.

“It’s one of my favorite places in the world,” Wynia said. “I would live there if I could. Seeing it absolutely trashed was really heartbreaking for me. I want to educate more people on what the Boundary Waters is and how we can promote sustainable water resources.”