The University on Thursday announced next year’s class of Yale World Fellows, which will include an adviser to the president of South Africa, a television producer for the United Nations and the opinion page editor of a leading Russian newspaper.

The 15 fellows selected this year — all up-and-coming professionals from around the world — will spend the fall semester in New Haven, attending classes, giving lectures and acting as a resource for students. Traditionally, the University accepts 18 fellows from a pool of about 1,000 applicants; this year, due to budget cuts, Yale took just 15, said Leslie Powell, the program’s director of outreach and external affairs.

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“The objective is to elevate international dialogue on campus,” Cappello said.

World Fellows must be citizens of at least one country other than the United States and must have “highly functional” English. In addition, the fellows “must have had some kind of demonstrated impact professionally,” Powell said.

The University assigns each fellow a residential college and two undergraduate liaisons, who bring fellows to dinner in the college and help them build relationships with other students.

Fatima Husain ’10, who acted as head liaison in 2008, said she still corresponds with the fellow to whom she was assigned in 2007. Husain said she also knows many liaisons who have obtained internships through fellows.

Many fellows, Powell said, credit the program for positively changing the trajectory of their careers.

The World Fellows Program launched eight years ago, at Yale’s tercentennial, as part of the University’s effort to raise its international profile.