Politics

Summer Internship Series: Summer in Politics

Posted on by Knowlton Center for Career Exploration

Chuck Eiben ’19

Republican Party of Cuyahoga County, Cleveland, Ohio

Over the summer I had the opportunity to intern for the Republican Party of Cuyahoga County. I have always been deeply fascinated in politics, even from a young age, and I finally got the opportunity to get a look of it from the inside this summer. My typical day at work was nothing exciting, but I would definitely say that it helped me a lot. My responsibilities included: making phone calls, stuffing envelopes, and helping to organize certain events. The event planning aspect of my internship was by far the most intriguing, as I was able to learn the importance of networking by having the opportunity to meet various high level officials in politics. For example, this summer I had the chance to meet with Vice President Mike Pence, Attorney General Mike DeWine, Secretary of State John Husted, Congressmen Jim Renacci and Jim Jordan among many others. The opportunity to meet high level officials taught me that networking can be a useful too, especially when the time comes for job searching during post graduation. Being a part of these events and having the responsibility to plan them also helped me become much more comfortable in my own skin, which made me much more of a confident person.

Overall, I think that I can honestly say that this was a truly wonderful summer experience. After completing this internship, I think that I have a much clearer vision of what I might want to do with my life after graduation. I can definitely see myself doing something in the realm of politics or public service. In fact, my boss has already invited me back to continue doing work for the party whenever I am not in school.

Summer Internship Series: My Summer in Civil Rights

Posted on by Knowlton Center for Career Exploration

Maddy Bellman ’18
My summer in civil rights - 2000px-seal_of_the_ohio_civil_rights_commission.svg_-150x150.png image #0Public Affairs and Civic Engagement Intern, Ohio Civil Rights Commission, Columbus, Ohio

My name is Maddy Bellman, and I’m currently a senior English major! Thanks to the Knowlton Center and Denison alumna Mary Turocy, I spent my summer in Columbus, Ohio, working with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission (OCRC) as the Public Affairs and Civic Engagement (PACE) intern.

As a PACE intern, my day-to-day changed quite a bit. I balanced working on my own projects, attending Commission meetings, and shadowing employees in intake, mediation, and follow-up conferences with charging parties. I also saw House of Representatives sessions, Senate subcommittee meetings, and contacted legislators to discuss their sponsored bills.

It was a new experience for me to work in an office for almost forty hours a week, and it certainly took some adjusting to. I had my own office, my own phone, and a normal lunch hour. The work was always changing, but I wished the office was busier and the work more urgent. Working for any part of the government often means slow yet purposeful progress, so while I appreciated the necessary steps we had to take when doing our work, I hope my post-graduate job will involve more exigent projects.

Sitting in on mediations between a charging party and a respondent opened my eyes to a possible career path after graduation. Sonya, an OCRC mediator, and I helped with a number of successful mediation between two parties, and our most notable mediation settled for almost fifty-thousand dollars.

It was great working with Sonya because she was always calm, impartial, and did everything she could to ensure a successful settlement. It takes a special type of person to be a mediator, and one of my coworkers said I’m well-suited for the position.

My largest project this summer was the standardization of 53 documents for the five regional OCRC offices. I worked with our Chief Legal Counsel on this project to make sure every document had the proper letterhead, grammar, and formatting, and the purpose of this process is to protect our office from potential legal issues down the road.

I noticed and corrected a number of inconsistencies in the documents I worked on, and my project supervisors appreciated this. This was a difficult and tedious project, but my project supervisor made it all worth it when she said I did “two years of work in two days”!

Thank you to the Knowlton Center and generous alumni who made this internship possible through financial aid and pre-internship preparation. I can’t thank Mary Turocy ’05 enough for sponsoring me as an intern this summer. I learned valuable lessons of compassion and selflessness from the dedicated, caring people I worked with, and I appreciated all of my time with them.