Achievements and Commitment to Community

From a young age, Jalen has demonstrated a commitment to serving his community. Most notably, following the murder of George Floyd just a couple short miles from his home in Minneapolis, MN, Jalen Co-founded the Just Action Coalition---a 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to increasing youth participation in policy making processes on the local and state levels in Minnesota. Jalen’s work with the Just Action Coalition led the organization into some of the most important and consequential conversations happening on the local and state levels concerning community-based approaches to public safety. The Just Action Coalition proposed a series community-based approaches to the Minnesota State Police Officers Standards and Training Board to increase institutional transparency between police departments and the communities in which they serve---of which the board partially adopted the proposal following sweeping public safety reforms passed by the Minnesota legislature and signed by the governor during the summer of 2020.

 In addition to his work with the Just Action Coalition, Jalen’s career at Princeton was similarly defined by his commitment to service. He spent the summer following his sophomore year in Washington D.C. working in the United States Senate for his home Senator Amy Klobuchar. The following summer, Jalen worked for the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice in Newark New Jersey where he assisted in the institute’s research and policy initiatives around lowering the voting age in municipal elections and the study of reparations in the state. On campus, Jalen was heavily involved in Princeton’s service landscape; having served on the advisory boards for the Programs for Community Engaged Scholarship and Princeton’s advocacy and activism student organizations, as well as Co-Chairing Princeton’s Minority Pre-Law Association and as a student athlete wellness leader--in addition to many other things. For his senior thesis, For a Greater Cause: An ethnographic reflection on the benefits, shortcomings, and implications of Princeton University’s service landscape, Jalen applied his passion for service through applying anthropological methods to analyzing Princeton’s service landscape and identifying areas from growth and improvement in an effort to make the University’s modes of knowledge production more community involved and conscious.

Jalen has been widely recognized for his mutual commitment to both sport and service. During the spring of 2023, Jalen was just one of 62 college juniors to be awards the President Harry S. Truman Scholarship for public service---a graduate school financial scholarship awarded to college juniors who have demonstrated a sustained record of leadership and professional commitment to public service.

 In the spring of 2024, Jalen was awarded the Coach John Wooden Citizenship Cup by Athletes for a Better World, which is awarded to one male and one female athlete throughout the country for their mutual commitment to sport and society. Jalen was awarded the Citizenship Cup at an awards ceremony at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta, GA, in May of 2024. To conclude his time at Princeton, Jalen was awarded the Art Lane ’34 Award, which is awarded to one undergraduate athlete in recognition of their selfless contribution to sport and society.