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Printer-Friendly ModePoli sci interns soak up experience in Lansing
Prof revamps program to better serve students
June 8, 2009 —
A contingent of SVSU students is making its mark on the state capital this summer as the first year of the Department of Political Science’s Lansing Living-Learning Experience gets underway.
Sixteen Cardinals are living together in an apartment complex in East Lansing and carpooling to the capitol each day. The students are completing internships for a number of state representatives and senators from both sides of the aisle, including area legislators like Saginaw’s Andy Coulouris and Roger Kahn, Midland’s Jim and Tony Stamas, Bay City’s Jeff Mayes, and The Thumb’s Terry Brown.
Two students, political science senior Darren Kregger and sophomore Jordan Bellant, have another role: working on the 2010 Democratic gubernatorial nomination campaigns of Lt. Gov. John Cherry and Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith, respectively.
This intensive, group-centered internship program was designed by John Kaczynski, instructor of political science and director of SVSU’s Center for Public Policy and Service. True to the center’s name, the students involved in the internship program exhibit a passion for public service and have received extensive training in the idiosyncrasies of Michigan state policy- making. The new program differs from the department’s old approach to placing interns — individually and usually in the local offices of U.S. Sen. Carl Levin and U.S. Rep. Dave Camp. A contingent of SVSU students is making its mark on the state capital this summer as the first year of the Department of Political Science’s Lansing Living-Learning Experience gets underway.
Sixteen Cardinals are living together in an apartment complex in East Lansing and carpooling to the capitol each day. The students are completing internships for a number of state representatives and senators from both sides of the aisle, including area legislators like Saginaw’s Andy Coulouris and Roger Kahn, Midland’s Jim and Tony Stamas, Bay City’s Jeff Mayes, and The Thumb’s Terry Brown.
Two students, political science senior Darren Kregger and sophomore Jordan Bellant, have another role: working on the 2010 Democratic gubernatorial nomination campaigns of Lt. Gov. John Cherry and Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith, respectively.
This intensive, group-centered internship program was designed by John Kaczynski, instructor of political science and director of SVSU’s Center for Public Policy and Service.
True to the center’s name, the students involved in the internship program exhibit a passion for public service and have received extensive training in the idiosyncrasies of Michigan state policy- making. The new program differs from the department’s old approach to placing interns — individually and usually in the local offices of U.S. Sen. Carl Levin and U.S. Rep. Dave Camp. Instead, the Lansing Living-Learning Experience focuses on communitybuilding and collaboration among the interns to strengthen their experiential education, and it keeps the emphasis on state-level governmental issues.
The innovative approach is the brainchild of Kaczynski, who developed his program on the so-called Oxford- model of education, named after that university’s famed system of residential learning communities. He also used the “gap year” programs of other universities as a model, programs in which students suspend classes to complete a full-year internship.
But time constraints during the spring and summer semesters forced Kaczynski to condense the curriculum into a rigorous schedule of five six-hour days before the internships started and five more weeks of three-hour sessions afterward — a total of 45 instruction hours in just six weeks.
That may sound insufferable to some, but Sean Hammond, biology sophomore and intern for Rep. Rick Jones of Eaton County, insisted the opposite is true.
“The class time with Professor Kaczynski was great,” Hammond said. “He just made class so fun, and the discussions facilitated by him were so helpful in learning the ins and outs of how Michigan government works.”
The Lansing Living-Learning Experience has drawn students from a variety of academic backgrounds. Though largely composed of political science majors or minors, there are a number of students from other departments. Besides biology major Hammond, students pursuing majors and minors in history, professional and technical writing, forensic science, Asian studies and philosophy. The interns’ career interests are likewise varied: politics, law, administration, teaching, lobbying and foreign service.
Kaczynski emphasizes that the program is non-exclusionary. “The only requirement to enroll is interest and the willingness to move to Lansing.”
To enhance the residential learning experience, Kaczynski even paired off students into rooms based on opposite political affiliations: Democrats must live with Republicans or Libertarians, and vice versa, insuring the students receive a broad range of perspectives. As for the work the interns do each day in the capitol, it may be educational and essential for the smooth operation of the state government, but much of it is far from glamorous.
Kaczynski said the interns day-to-day work is largely nine-to-five clerical work — writing reply letters to constituents, attending meetings and observing governmental proceedings.
Hammond described his work in terms that one could safely call drudgery: “Most of the time I simply do filing, other tasks like that, such as labeling maps,” he said. “One of the weirdest things about these offices is the up and down times, you never know when the phone is going to start ringing off the hook or when things will suddenly go silent.”
Political science junior Justin Alexander provided a different perspective, however.
“It really is very exciting,” Alexander said. “The state has cut pages out of the budget, so we do the tasks they used to do, like running errands, meeting a lot of congresspeople and going to committee meetings.”
Bellant agreed with Alexander, adding, “I never know what to expect from one day to the next — working on the campaign, helping at a debate, even writing letters to prisoners. It’s always exciting.”
Though the threat of office-place ennui may be present for some interns, Kaczynski maintains that, now more than ever, students need to embrace internship opportunities and other ways of getting involved during their college years to stand out in the increasingly competitive world of graduate school admissions and job applications.
“Any programs that show you’ve got some real experience or that you’ve stepped outside your area — volunteering, internships, study abroad, alternative breaks — really say something about you, help you to stand out,” Kaczynski said.
Though interns are paid little or nothing and often are relegated to menial tasks, the education and the experience gained through internships — not to mention the competitive advantage they provide in application processes — make them invaluable for today’s students.