The clinical rehabilitation and mental health counseling master’s student hopes to provide community, engagement and inspiration to future fellows.
The Graduate School has named Ramana Housman, a student in the UNC School of Medicine, as the 2024-25 senior fellow for the Weiss Urban Livability Program. The Weiss senior fellow takes a leadership role in the program, which supports graduate students who share a common interest in urban livability. Housman will facilitate academic seminars and other interdisciplinary opportunities for students in their new role.
Housman graduated with honors from Northeastern University in 2021 with a bachelor’s degree in behavioral neuroscience. At UNC-Chapel Hill, they are in their second year of the health sciences department’s master’s program in clinical rehabilitation and mental health counseling. Housman has focused on bringing a unique perspective — combining their experience working directly with people with developmental disabilities and their work with evidence-based research — to address barriers that people with disabilities face in accessing meaningful vocation and community.
We spoke with Housman about their goals as the incoming Weiss senior fellow.
Why did you want to apply for the senior fellow position?
Because the Weiss Urban Livability Fellowship has been so impactful to my graduate school experience, I was both excited and humbled at the prospect of mentoring future fellows. I applied to the position of senior fellow with the hopes of providing the same caliber of community, intellectual engagement, and inspiration that I received. I am thrilled to have been given such an amazing opportunity to impact my community while growing in my own capacity to be a scholar and leader.
What’s been the best part of participating in the fellowship?
The sense of community that the Weiss Urban Livability Fellowship fosters is extremely profound. I was beyond nervous to move to North Carolina for graduate school, as I knew nobody in the area and had spent very little time in Chapel Hill. Our seminar quickly became the highlight of my time at Carolina, as my group quickly developed a great camaraderie and deep respect for each other’s expertise. It was truly fantastic to be surrounded by such intelligent, curious, humble, and mindful students.
What are you hoping to accomplish in the next year?
As the senior fellow, I hope to empower the incoming fellows to direct their own experience. I will use the mentoring and counseling skills I have developed in my degree program to cultivate a collaborative, cooperative space for growth and development. The issues of urban livability we tackle as a group require not only rigorous scholarship but also the courage to imagine a radically different future. By fostering authentic dialogue and arming the fellows with the necessary tools for undertaking community-centered civic engagement, I aim to inspire the next class of fellows to achieve their biggest aspirations.
How has the Weiss fellowship supported you during your time at Carolina?
The Weiss Fellowship has supported me in countless ways. Through open-hearted discussions amongst the fellows about our struggles and successes, I was able to overcome immense feelings of imposter syndrome in my academic pursuits.
Through my position as a graduate assistant for the Division of Clinical Rehabilitation and Mental Health Counseling, I gained fantastic professional relationships with the faculty in my program and invaluable professional experience. With the financial support of the Weiss Fellowship, I can now pursue exciting research and clinical internship opportunities.
Since starting at UNC-Chapel Hill, I have been challenged and supported in ways I could have never imagined. I feel that I am finally blossoming into the leader I have always envisioned, someone with both the dedication and skillset necessary to engage with the complex issues of our modern society.