Tyler Yarbrough is a sophomore Public Policy Leadership major with a minor in Economics and History. He is a native of Clarksdale, MS and is a member of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi where he received the Stamps Scholarship, the most esteemed scholarship awarded to the incoming Freshman class.
Tyler experienced the true power of change as a member of the Mississippi Youth Council advocating for Comprehensive Sex Education in Mississippi. During his time with the Council, he recruited over 150 young people to the Youth Action Network, the backbone of the mobilizing infrastructure to activate young people in the state. Through this, he trained others on how to lobby their elected officials and lobbied legislators in the Mississippi Capital and the U.S. Congress on multiple occasions. His work ultimately led him to discuss the impacts of sex education on the MS Delta in the CNN Documentary “This is Sex with Lisa Ling.”
During the Summer leading up to his Sophomore year in college, Tyler taught social studies through a social justice lens to 8th graders in Providence Rhode Island. This social justice framework allowed him to highlight issues that affect minority communities while also working to instill within students a sense of agency to make change in their communities.
Tyler currently is the Co-Director of First Year Experience Programs at the University of Mississippi. Consisting of 4 programs with over 250+ first-year college students, the programs have become more leadership-oriented, paving the way for a new wave of leaders that will think more inclusively, work more collaboratively, and be more proactive to solving the real issues facing students on campus and in the state of Mississippi.
Tyler will spend the Summer of 2019 cultivating his passion to transform the Mississippi Delta as a Delta Scholar Fellow working with Harvard Law School and Mississippi State University to dive deeper into the issues that affect the Mississippi Delta while learning how to effectively advocate for policy-driven solutions that focus on economic development, education, food security and wealth creation in communities of color.