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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

IUSA internships offer freshmen leadership experience

Since National Voter Registration Day on Sept. 25, the IU Student Association has sponsored nonpartisan voter registration efforts on campus.

This program, like other IUSA executive operations, would typically be spearheaded by upperclassmen. Today, 21 freshmen interns are the ones in charge, Deputy Chief of Staff Nick Johnson said.

The IUSA Freshmen Internship program pairs a freshman with a senior IUSA staff mentor who they then shadow and observe in leadership positions throughout the year.

“A lot of students come to campus and don’t understand what it takes to get involved or become a leader,” Johnson said.

Co-director of the Freshmen Internship Program Aparna Srinath was a freshman intern last year. Entering a campus of more than 40,000 students is a daunting task, Srinath said, and she sought out the program to find a sense of community and connect with a smaller group of similarly motivated people.

“I applied in the first week of classes,” she said. “I remembered reading it on a brochure and thinking that it would be a great way to stand out amongst 40,000 students, and I still believe this.”

Students first learn about the program during summer orientation at the late-night campus tour. During the tour, IUSA members speak about the role of student government in campus life, Johnson said.

“We got 90 applications this year, so it’s competitive,” Johnson said.
Once chosen, interns work five to seven hours a week, working on larger initiatives such as the voter registration effort or sitting in on meetings with administrators or senior staffers. The important thing is that the interns take ownership of their work, Johnson said.

It’s an opportunity to participate in something that not many freshmen get to be a part of, Srinath said. IUSA does not have many opportunities in the executive branch for freshmen.

“That’s one of the greatest things about the program,” she said. “It doesn’t pigeon-hole you. It exposes you to all aspects of IUSA.”

The internship program had actually been in place before, Johnson said, but it had fallen dormant. Former IUSA President Justin Kingsolver revived the program last year to begin cultivating a group of talented leaders on the IU campus, Johnson said.

“Kingsolver thought that one of the issues IUSA has is finding these future leaders,” Johnson said. “We didn’t have access to a big group of talented leaders, so he thought that if you developed these leaders, you’d have more opportunities to find good leaders on campus. We’re taking that idea and furthering it.”

The program also includes an eight-week course taught by Assistant Director of Student Leadership R.J. Woodring,, Johnson said. At the end of the course, the students participate in a “case competition” in which they develop their own initiatives for the proposed issues at hand.

The case competition was also part of last year’s program,Co-Chief of Campus Outreach Katy Flanigan said.

“My group designed a project to add a sustainable lighting fixture to an area of campus that we felt was poorly lit and made students feel uncomfortable,” Flanigan said.

They are considering creating more detailed parameters for the projects so that groups will be able to better combine their efforts rather than approach many completely unrelated topics, Srinath said.

The number of students who return to IUSA after the internship program is still somewhat low, Johnson said. Only four of the 29 interns returned to work with IUSA’s executive operations this year, he said, and even that was only an estimate.

Srinath believes this has to do with the type of students the program attracts.

“People who are coming into this program are the best and brightest of the incoming freshman class, demonstrated in interviews and a somewhat long application process,” Srinath said. “They may have a tendency to overextend themselves.”

She also cited availability of positions as an issue. While IUSA tries to provide opportunities to its interns, not everyone takes advantage of them, she said.

Others simply find themselves drawn to other causes, such as IU Dance Marathon or Kelley Student Government, Flanigan said.

“IUSA can kind of be sort of internal, so you must establish yourself as leader as well as you can, showing executives that you can be a good leader by coming into the office,” Srinath said. “I only knew about my current position because I was an intern.”
Johnson believes the program simply needs more time to grow and develop,yet Flanigan emphasized its impact.

“As a freshman, I was able to meet many people, both in IUSA as well as in other major student organizations, who became my role models because of their intelligence, dedication to the University and promising futures,” she said. “Now, I have two interns of my own, and I hope to make their experience as rewarding and helpful as mine was.”

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