Institute of Political Citizenship Sponsors Spring Internships

Thirteen undergraduate Tufts students will fan out across the Boston area during the spring semester to engage in internships focused on researching social policy through the Institute of Political Citizenship, a program developed and managed by students. These 13 will follow the seven IOPC interns who served in the statehouse and non-profits over the past fall semester.

Founded last year by several former Citizenship and Public Service (CPS) Scholars at Tisch College, the Institute—known as the IOPC—seeks to educate and motivate students to understand the policy side of politics – by engaging in state and local government though working on policies that address local community needs.

“We’re looking for students who may already have had experience in policy matters through issue advocacy groups on campus,” explained Sarah Ullman, a sophomore, current CPS Scholar and IOPC coordinating committee member responsible for this year’s internship program. “Our goal is to provide them with substantive experience.”

Substantive in this case means doing research on the impact of current or proposed policies, attending legislative committee hearings at the Massachusetts State House, identifying approaches used in other states, conducting field research and any number of other hands-on work that gets to the details of policy issues, such as:

• Researching the effects of a 1996 Massachusetts ballot initiative, which passed, that sought to ban the use of leghold and other body-gripping animal traps.

• Studying the Green Communities Act of 2007, which calls for the creation of energy efficient cities and towns across the state and the consolidation and streamlining of the state’s energy bureaucracy.

• Working with the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group (Mass PIRG) to asses alternatives to a gas tax including the sale of new tires and a parking tax.

Working closely with IOPC are Massachusetts Rep. Carl M. Sciortino Jr., a Tufts alumnus (A00), who helped launch the internship program last year; Tisch College Senior Fellow Tom Birmingham, president of the Massachusetts Senate from 1996 to 2003, who serves as academic advisor to the IOPC’s internship program; and Simon Rosenberg, a member of the Tisch Board of Advocates.

Ullman, who is majoring in English, as well as a second major she is designing around media and American social movements, said, “I’ve always loved politics, and feel it is important to know what’s going on and to get involved. Many students at Tufts feel the same way.”

Making Ullman’s case is the fact that 60 students applied for the 13 internship slots being offered this spring.

“A student who, for example, may have volunteered every Saturday at an AIDS clinic may want to do an internship that will give them a chance to work on health policy that could affect the people who run and use those clinics,” she said.

To enable others to learn what they did with their internships, all participants are asked to develop a report, some of which will be published in the Institute’s planned Journal of Public Policy. Other members of the IOPC coordinating committee are Matthew Shapanka, Jarrod Niedbloom, Brandon Rattiner and Dean Ladin.

Originally published January 2008