Government internships open to all students
USU’s Institute of Government and Politics is aiming to expand opportunities for students from all departments to participate in government and policy internships, said USU Director of Government Relations Neil Abercrombie.
“We are looking to expand these programs and broaden opportunities,” he said. Centralizing these internships will allow for “coordination of all the different pieces to help us expand.”
The main focus is to expand USU’s Policy Internship Program, both by broadening its appeal to students in all colleges, Abercrombie said. He said he hopes to use each department’s existing contacts to increase the number of opportunities for students and get them involved in government. Besides congressional internships, the institute is working to expand opportunities with federal agencies, non-profits, embassies and trade agencies.
Political science Senior Lecturer Carol McNamara, co-director of the institute, said the chief focus is on “policy and government internships that apply to the colleges of English, Agriculture and Education,” among others.
Associate Dean of the College of Agriculture Janet Anderson, who also serves as the co-director of for the institute, said its goal is twofold. First, she said, it aims to market the current internships to disciplines other than political science. Second, it aims to engage faculty in identifying internships.
Government internships are being moved from the political science department to the institute, Anderson said. She said she is working with the colleges to allow students filling policy internships to receive credit in their own department, rather than as elective political science credits.
Anderson said an effort is also being made to increase the academic value of internships.
Students in Washington, D.C. internships, she said, take part in a seminar series and changes are being made to the papers written by students after their experiences.
“Internships provide students real-life knowledge and experience that will be an asset for the rest of their lives.” Abercrombie said. He said he feels students benefit from these experiences, regardless of the direction their careers might take.
In addition to reaching out to students, Abercrombie said he plans to involve faculty in identifying internships through networks and also engage alumni who have participated in government internships in the past.
The Institute of Government and Politics has also sought to engage the hundreds of alumni who have taken part in these internships over the past decades, McNamara said. To accomplish this, an opening event was held in conjunction with homecoming week.
“The objective was to tell everyone what we are doing,” McNamara said.
In addition to alumni, the event was attended by U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop and other Utah legislators and administrators.
Alumni shared ideas and opportunities, McNamara said. They are an untapped resource, and there may be opportunities for fundraising to help sponsor students who apply for internships that are currently unfunded, she added.
Abercrombie said he plans to eventually create a advisory board made up of “influential alumni and friends of USU in the Washington, D.C. area,” who can help open doors for internships.
Abercrombie said a secondary goal is to “provide a vehicle to promote campus research with policy implications.”
“We also want to involve faculty members in policy debates, in Utah,” McNamara said.
Anderson said these efforts are intended to identify faculty whose research is applicable to current policy debates in Utah and help promote research and allow USU to contribute relevant knowledge to the policy process.
The institute has been organized with two rotating co-directors, one from the political science department and a one from a different college, to facilitate program expansion.
Faculty involved in the institute visited classes around campus to explain the new opportunities to students. Abercrombie said the growth of this program “assumes demand from students.”
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