..............................................................................................................................................................

Beyond the Social Safety Net ............................ Smith interns work with society's least advantaged By Winston Smith ............................ Commentary: Working to Make a Difference Alum on a Mission: Leading Interns to the Public Sector Jane Lofgren Pearsall '57 ............................

Smith students who want to help people who have fallen outside the social safety net now have a chance to pursue their interests and get paid in the process. "Unpaid positions are a dime a dozen, but one in which students receive meaningful experience in the public sector and a paycheck is distinctive," says Erin Austin Krasik '93, coordinator of Smith Internships in the Public Interest, a unique alumnae-sponsored program. Through the internships, undergraduates can sign on to work with a variety of Chicago-based nonprofit organizations dealing with issues that range from AIDS to voter registration to immigrant and refugee protection. "They're all over the map," says program founder Jane Lofgren Pearsall '57, referring to the organizations that employ interns. "But these are not the fancy not-for-profits. They're what I call the down-and-dirty." She says the eight-week summer internships are designed so that students can rub shoulders with the least advantaged members of society and help them to improve their lots. In the four years the program has been around, students have taught GED classes to adolescent dropouts, staffed suicide and domestic abuse hot lines, and inspected soup kitchens and homeless shelters. "We really want it to be hands-on," Pearsall notes. "We don't want it to be research. The idea is that the interns would go out and be with people, not go into a library. We really want them to be in a disenfranchised area." Although she would like to add at least 20 organizations to the seven already enlisted, Pearsall says she had to turn down the offer of an internship from the Chicago Bar Association. She doesn't want students helping lawyers, she notes, even if it's pro bono work, because those interns would have limited exposure to "people who are living on shoestrings.'' "I feel that young women should be exposed to the not-for-profit world," she says. "Even if they go on to be bankers, I feel everyone should give back something in their communities." A key component of the program is the mentoring that goes on between the intern and a Smith alumna, says Krasik. Interns are typically paired with alumnae who work for nonprofits or serve on their boards, and who are willing to take their charges home occasionally for a summer barbecue or to a show, as well as chat up the benefits of their careers and volunteer work. "I thought the internships were viable because we could ask alumnae for help without asking for money," Pearsall says. "And it ties these Smithies into all these organizations they might not have known about. It works both ways." Now there is a push under way to develop similar internships across the country, wherever Smith clubs are located. "Name a big city. That's where we want to be," says Krasik. "That's where you have very vital nonprofit organizations." Christine El Eris '92 was initially interested in setting up an internship program in New York City like the one in Chicago, but with an emphasis on both the nonprofit and the private sectors. "We were thinking of setting up an internship program that accommodates both needs and interests," she says. "There is a significant alumnae population here that's pretty successful. So a lot of alums would like to open a lot of opportunities to current students." El Eris, who was inspired to start the New York program by her friend Krasik, says that what makes the internships appealing is that interns not only do interesting work but they also engage in organized activities with alumnae. "It's an opportunity to feel part of a group during the summertime as opposed to coming to a particular location but not joining with other students,'' she says. El Eris, a financial representative with the Norton Group, says she is hoping to start the New York City program with three to four interns next summer. She had hoped to steer some students into private-sector positions, but because of reservations expressed by Pearsall and Krasik regarding the private sector internship, El Eris decided to stick with the Chicago model. She says she will leave other members of New York's Smith Club to set up interns in profit-making firms. "I have no interest in the private sector," says Pearsall. But, she says, she could live with "parallel internships" if there is a strict line of demarcation between private-sector and nonprofit internships. "There's room for two parallel programs, but I think they're distinct," she emphasizes. Krasik, who is doing graduate work in public policy at the University of Chicago in addition to her job at the Midwest-Northeast Voter Registration Education Project, says her reservations about the private sector stem from the fact that corporations already have recruiting networks, which put nonprofits at a disadvantage in the competition for students. Pearsall insists that she wants to stick with nonprofits because the impetus for the internship program arose from the desire of successful people in the private sector to steer the younger generation away from the financial excesses typical of the 1980s. The public-interest internship program is modeled after a similar program created in 1990 by Princeton University's alumni class of 1955, Pearsall notes. In 1991 she was among some hundred class presidents, including those from schools like Notre Dame University and Wellesley College, invited to Princeton to be introduced to the public-interest internship, or Project 55. "We simply copied it," says Pearsall. Except in a few respects. John Fish, who helped set up Project 55 and who is based in Chicago, says that yearlong fellows as well as summer interns work in that program. Fellows are usually first-year graduates and even graduate students and earn about $1,500 a month. Summer interns make $250 a week. Since its inception, Project 55 has placed about 500 Princeton students in more than 70 organizations in Chicago. It now has interns and fellows in Boston, New York City, San Francisco, Atlanta and Washington, D.C. In any given year between 30 and 40 Chicago organizations are interested in interns, Fish says. "All the organizations pay the interns," he notes. "In the first year, we paid probably half of the stipends. Then it became sufficiently established that the organizations saw the interns were valuable." Smith interns receive a $1,500 stipend for their eight weeks in Chicago. Pearsall points out that while some of the nonprofits pay interns from their budgets, others do not have the funds and have to be subsidized. She would like to have all of the organizations pay the stipend, however, because she believes that having to pay forces organizations "to pay more attention to interns." Kenneth Johnston, internship coordinator in Smith's Career Development Office, says that although "internships are about learning rather than about earning," it's always good to have those that pay. Otherwise, he says, some students are forced to subsidize their internships by taking on paying jobs during the period they intern. "Internships are important more than ever before for students to move into the corporate world or graduate school," says Johnston. He points out that these institutions increasingly "want to see what sort of practical work" college graduates can do. "The amazing thing about the Smith Internships in the Public Interest is that they have been able to find sponsors to support the program financially," he says. "We do have a good amount of public-sector internships, but never enough paid ones, unfortunately." Christine Wee '97, who interned in Chicago last summer, says the simple fact her internship was in the public interest caught her eye. "I saw the ad in the CDO, and I immediately applied,'' she says. "It was perfect for me. I knew I wanted to do public interest work." Wee says that in working for the Chicago Anti-Hunger Federation last summer she received "immediate gratification." According to Wee, she was "sort of an inspector'' charged with making sure the agencies were spending their funds properly and in compliance with regulations regarding health and safety. "It wasn't a nine-to-five. It was feeding people," she reflects. "You know that you're helping people in the long run." Caroline Dugan '96, another of the eight interns in Chicago last summer, agrees that the mentoring, particularly on the group level, was superb. "The network had lots of contacts with a bunch of interesting people," she notes. "We were able to arrange to talk to people we wouldn't have been able to talk with on a regular internship." Dugan worked with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Protection. "It was a lot of phone work," she explains. "I was hoping it would be more frontline stuff. But it was good to see the behind-the-scenes work." Anita Woo '97 terms her internship with Child Abuse Prevention Services an unqualified success. "It was a really, really amazing experience for me," she says. "Basically, I did whatever was needed. I worked in many departments." Woo helped write grants, facilitated groups for abused children and counseled people over a parental crisis hot line reporting child abuse, suicidal inclinations and domestic violence. But her proudest achievement, she says, was the computerization of "the entire intake process, which had never been done before." Woo plans to return to Chicago to work at a nonprofit before going to graduate school to study social work. Back to top Alum on a Mission: Leading Interns to the Public Sector Like many women of her generation, Jane Lofgren Pearsall '57 got married right out of college. But even though she didn't take on a career as such, she remained engaged with the world of work through her activities as a volunteer. "It seems to me I always want to do something," Pearsall says. "I get the satisfaction of seeing something get accomplished." Her current mission is to raise enough money and interest so that Smith Internships in the Public Interest can expand to other cities besides Chicago. Pearsall says such small-scale projects to aid the poor and marginalized are the way to go. "This needs to be done on a very small basis,'' she says. "I don't see these enormous government intrusions as having done much good." So now Pearsall is traveling the country to drum up support from like-minded Smith alumnae. Christine El Eris '92, who is setting up an internship program in New York City, met Pearsall for the first time there last fall and was impressed with her. "She really enjoys the opportunity to be directly involved with students,'' El Eris says. "I certainly know that I can reach out to her to ask for advice and support at any point in time." Besides the Smith Internships, the boards and organizations Pearsall has served include Chicago's Mid-America Leadership Foundation, League of Women Voters, United Way and Frank Lloyd Wright House and Studio. She started out with Sunday school at her church and over time became president of the school board in a Chicago suburb. Meanwhile, she was raising four children, two of whom graduated from Smith. Even when she was living in the Philippines during the 1960s because of her husband's business interests, the urge to do good didn't leave Pearsall. She joined the local chapter of the American Association of University Women to help provide college scholarships for Filipino women. Back to top ............................ For further information on Smith Internships in the Public Interest, call Erin Krasik at (312) 373-7404 or CDO Internship Coordinator Ken Johnston at (413) 585-2570. Applications for Smith internships are available at the CDO.

..............................................................................................................................................................

Back to the Smith College home page | Back to NewsSmith's home page