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For the third consecutive year, alumni, friends, and donors gathered to support the Presidential Leadership Fellows Program, raising more than $200,000 — a record-breaking total — during the 2026 Annual Fundraising Dinner and Golf Challenge from Sept. 20-21.
The funds raised support a group of 14 burgeoning young leaders, called President’s Fellows, who participate in leadership and professional development training to serve as ambassadors of Princeton Seminary, gaining networking opportunities and management skills.
“We placed professional development and hospitality training at the center of leadership formation,” said President Jonathan Lee Walton, who created the program with Cecily Cline Walton. “We’ve been able to pilot trainings and offerings [with the Fellows] that we aim to expand to the full student body. We are deeply grateful to all who have pledged their support to this formative program and made this investment in the leaders that our churches need.”
“Over the last three years it has been a joy to walk alongside these wonderful students,” Mrs. Cline Walton continued. “We’ve seen them become more thoughtful about the kind of leaders they want to become and more intentional about how they engage and serve others on this campus and beyond.”
Sunday’s fundraising dinner at Wright Library brought guests and sponsors together for an evening of food, fellowship, and timely discussion. Guests bid on a range of silent auction items, including rounds of golf at premier courses on the East Coast, overnight stays at luxury hotels, wine tastings, artwork, sports memorabilia, and more.
A conversation between Dr. Cornel West, the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Professor of Philosophy & Christian Practice at Union Theological Seminary, and Dr. Robert P. George, Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, was the focal point of the evening. Trustee Dr. Karen Jackson-Weaver also moderated a Q&A with West and George.
These leading public intellectuals and friends who sit on opposite sides of the political spectrum recently authored the book Truth Matters: A Dialogue on Fruitful Disagreement in an Age of Division. During West and George’s wide-ranging discussion, they spoke about the critical role integrity plays in formation, no matter one’s personal beliefs, and how approaching life from the perspective of one’s morality can shift priorities.
“Every single human being faces the challenge of getting your values correct in life,” said George.
Both George and West say they teach their students to “learn how to die” in order to grow.
“Learning how to die means being willing to muster the courage to examine a certain set of assumptions and prejudices you have,” West said. “When you give up an assumption that is a form of death. The only way to grow, the only way to mature, the only way to develop is you have to give something up in order to be reborn, recast, regenerated.”
On Monday, golfers enjoyed a round at Springdale Golf Club, while others participated in a tour of the recently renovated Princeton University Art Museum. The annual event has continued to grow with 26 corporate and nonprofit sponsors this year, including presenting sponsors, Atlantic Council Freedom and Prosperity Center and Stevens & Lee.
Jane and Scott Wolfe have supported the annual fundraiser for the past three years. They are the co-founders of Melba’s Famous Po’Boys and the founders of the Eat and Read Literacy Project, a community literacy program based out of their popular New Orleans restaurant. Throughout the two-day fundraiser, donors were able to connect with the students whose experience they are directly impacting.
“To learn about the President’s Fellows’ academic interests is an awe-inspiring experience,” Jane Wolfe said. “I can see the future of religion through the research of President Walton’s President’s Fellows.”
Jacob Harrell, a senior MDiv/MACEF student who has served as a President’s Fellow since the program’s inception, has taken on a role as a pastor at Trinity United Methodist Church in Gloucester City, New Jersey, and serves as a youth pastor at Haddonfield United Methodist Church. His experience at Princeton Seminary, particularly in the Presidential Leadership Fellows Program, has prepared him to embrace these new leadership opportunities.
“Being able to understand how institutions work, how to lead a team, how to work well with others, while having those experiences behind the pulpit and in administrative roles, has greatly influenced my approach to leadership,” Harrell said. “When I think about the President’s Fellows, it makes me think of the body of Christ imagery. It takes different kinds of people to do different roles. And some of us are called to be leaders. It doesn’t make us more important than anybody else. It makes us a different part of the body and to see that my spiritual gifts and my talents were affirmed by the leadership at this institution is very special.”
We are deeply grateful to all who have pledged their support to this formative program and made this investment in the leaders that our churches need.”
Priscilla Youn, second-year President’s Fellow and MDiv student, said her participation in the program has been one of the highlights of her seminary experience. From a Fellows retreat at the start of the semester, to gatherings throughout the year with local and national organizational leaders, and more, Youn says each opportunity she has been able to participate in because of the Presidential Leadership Fellows Program has profoundly influenced her approach to leadership and ministry.
“We are invited into spaces with leaders from a wide range of ministerial and professional backgrounds, and every conversation becomes an opportunity to learn, build relationships, and expand our understanding of leadership,” said Youn, who serves as a youth minister serving Korean American students. “Through the Fellows Program, I have become more conscious of how I carry myself in different spaces, how I communicate the work and vision God has entrusted to me, and how important it is to remain both teachable and attentive to the people around me.”
