WSU interns go to Washington

By Amy Geiszler-Jones

Inside WSU

Real estate major K.C. Steiner displays memorabilia from his 1995 stint as a White House intern. Among his items are invitations to heads of state arrivals, a commemorative key chain, a T-shirt and his pass to the White House. More than 20 WSU students have participated in the public service internship program since 1995.

Being on hand for heads of state arriving at the White House, helping organize grass-roots information sessions for ethnic communities and interviewing witnesses for the public defender’s office don’t sound like typical experiences for WSU students.

But for a small number, those kinds of things -- all happening in the nation’s capital -- have become a highlight of their college education.

Since 1995, WSU has participated in an internship program that sends about a handful of students each spring semester to Washington, D.C., for a sampling of public service. The University of Kansas started the program in 1984, and years later WSU administrator Fred Sudermann and political science professor Mel Kahn helped forge a partnership that allows WSU students to participate as well.

This year the program started sending interns to Topeka as well. WSU has one student intern working in the House Majority leader’s office. Eric Sexton, WSU’s legislative liaison, helps facilitate the Topeka program for WSU.

Senior Roula Attar is one of five students interning this spring in Washington, D.C. From her office in the Arab-American Institute overlooking the Washington Monument and just two blocks from the White House, she helps organize town meetings about this year’s political candidates and their positions for fellow Arab-Americans in communities across the United States.

When she started looking for internships -- students are responsible for finding an internship -- she applied to 10 organizations, all involved some way in foreign affairs, her field of interest. She decided to accept the Arab-American Institute internship.

"I’m doing something for people just like me, Arab-Americans who’ve moved to the United States," says Attar, who moved to Wichita six years ago from Lebanon with her family.

She plans to go on to law school, possibly Georgetown, and specialize in international law, advocating human rights and anti-terrorism. This internship will help her develop some valuable contacts, she believes.

"This is kind of testing the waters," she says. "I wanted to see if D.C. is the place for me, and I figured out it is after one month."

It’s also the ideal place to be to volunteer for a presidential campaign. Earlier this month, she logged on to Al Gore’s campaign Web site to put her name in as a volunteer.

The other WSU interns this semester are working at the public defender’s office, the offices of Republican Rep. Todd Tiahrt-Kan. and Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson-S.D., and the Stimson Center, a think tank dealing with foreign affairs.

For K.C. Steiner, a real estate major, and Matt Babcock, now a graduate teaching assistant in Spanish, the highlights of their internships included being part of the invited crowd when heads of state arrived at the White House. Steiner, for instance, was on the south lawn when King Hussein of Jordan, the president of Brazil, and Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany visited.

Both worked in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel -- Steiner in 1995, as one of the first WSU interns to go to Washington, and Babcock in 1996.

While at the White House, Babcock helped locate resumes and background information on Hispanic candidates for appointments in which ethnicity was a factor. Occasionally he drafted the first take of a memo summarizing the candidate’s experience that would eventually end up in the Oval Office.

Steiner helped make arrangements for political incumbents or candidates visiting Washington, D.C.

Both advocate the program, but not only for the insight it gives into government.

"I would recommend the program, especially for people from the Midwest, because of the cultural experience, for one thing," Babcock says. "It’s a different pace and atmosphere."

As part of the internship, the students have to keep a daily log of their experiences, write an academic research paper and attend weekly seminars.

Speakers at the seminars range from talks by Washington Post reporters to briefings by the national archivist, who is former Kansas governor John Carlin, or policy wonks from think tanks. The program’s namesake, former Sen. Bob Dole, meets with the interns and treats them to lunch as well.

Inside WSU

Political science professor Mel Kahn coordinates WSU’s public service internship program, which has been offered in partnership with the University of Kansas since 1995. Students in any discipline can intern with the program at a number of federal, public service or other organizations in Washington, D.C.

An onsite coordinator makes the arrangement for the seminars. For a number of years, former Kansas Rep. Bob Whittaker had that role; now former Rep. Jim Slattery and his wife set up the seminars. Hiring former Congressmen as coordinators has distinct advantages, according to Kahn, and is unique to the WSU/KU program.

"If you’ve been a member of Congress you get all kinds of access and have all kinds of relationships," he says.

As the WSU program coordinator, Kahn has an additional requirement for the WSU interns. "One of the things we require, so they can get the full benefit of an internship in Washington, D.C., is that they visit about 15 places on a checklist I have." Sites include the Supreme Court, the Kennedy Center, and, of course, the Smithsonian Institute.

Interns can come from any discipline, says Kahn, who is getting ready to offer information sessions on the program in March.

Students can intern at just about any federal agency or other organization involved in public service or policy. For instance, an engineering student could work at the Bureau of Weights and Measures, a health professions or a social work student could intern at a Department of Health and Human Services agency, while a communications student could work at CNN, he points out.

Students compete for stipends made available through the university’s mill levy funds and scholarships.

While Monica Lewinsky brought Washington interns some notoriety and made them the butt of jokes, it hasn’t hurt the WSU program.

"If anything, it’s publicized it more," says Kahn. The year prior to the story breaking about Lewinsky’s affair with President Clinton while she was a White House intern, WSU had only five applicants. The next year it had 13.

"Most people realize it was an aberration," Kahn says.