Meeting Sandra Day O'Connor

by Darren McDivitt

The staff members at the Austin satellite office stress the importance of the learning experience our internship program offers, and our interns do a tremendous job in the office itself. However, we are always looking for new opportunities that will help reinforce the importance of their contributions to voter education through Project Vote Smart. With this approach in mind, we jumped at the opportunity for our staff and interns to attend a discussion on civics, featuring former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Hosted by our partners at UT, Austin, the Annette Strauss Institute, the discussion touched on a variety of topics ranging from Justice O’Connor’s background, to her experiences as the first female Supreme Court Justice. She proved to be an entertaining speaker, weaving humorous anecdotes into the discussion while showing a strong passion for the work she did working in Arizona and in the Supreme Court. The discussion concluded on the topic of civics education and Justice O’Connor’s role as the founder of iCivics. iCivics seeks to promote civics education by providing factual information, lesson plans, and interactive tools for use at the K-12 level.

When the opportunity to attend this event was announced, our staff and interns jumped at the chance to reserve spots, and found the experience very rewarding. “Her personable approach to the conversation struck me as very interesting. I have always admired her career, yet to see her personality and spot-on sense of humor made her even more inspiring” said summer intern Lindsay Drew.

Others felt that her comments helped clarify the importance of the type of work they are doing this summer.

“It was interesting how Justice O’Connor focused on the importance of reliable resources for civics education. She reinforced my thoughts on how important it is for citizens to understand what is occurring in the courts, but also to be informed about their elected officials” said summer intern Rob Evans.
 
 The Right Stuff
 
 

by Jim Harrold
 

“Hello! My name is Jim Harrold, and I am the Office Manager for Project Vote Smart.” As the person in charge of interviewing and evaluating all job and internship applicants, I've started a lot of conversations this way. It's part of my job to talk to people, to learn about them in order to gauge whether they have the “right stuff” to make a positive contribution to Project Vote Smart's mission. Deciding who has that stuff is a challenging duty, and one I've given a lot of thought.

What do we look for when we hire a new researcher? What do we want in an intern? These questions strike at the core of Project Vote Smart's identity. Our organization is profoundly affected by the composition of our staff and intern workforce. These folks do the work, keep the Great Divide Ranch up and running, and ultimately dictate the nature of Project Vote Smart through their own experiences. Given the incredible work they do, it's easy to rattle off sentiments and platitudes when describing the people who come and work for us: Amazing. Dedicated. Exceptional. Outstanding.

These words are reflections. They are our attempt to appreciate the singular qualities of character and personality that a successful internship or work experience with Project Vote Smart requires. We are on a mission to help this country save itself, to educate millions of voters, and to make our government remember that it is accountable to the people. We do all of this on a non-profit budget, from a remote fastness in the awesome Rocky Mountains, largely fueled by the goodwill of our members and the idealism of the college students, young adults, and member-volunteers who give a few weeks or a few years of their lives to our cause. This is a challenging undertaking that many apply to join. Yet we accept only a fraction of the hundreds of individuals who seek internships and jobs with Project Vote Smart. What sets the best apart from the rest?

#socialmedia

by Hannah Stewart

Although today happens to be a pretty wet and, as my Scottish family would say, “dreich” day, the summer is fully in swing here at the Project Vote Smart headquarters in Philipsburg, MT. And that means that we're also in the full swing of intern season!

This year's summer interns are already making a big difference here, and we're happy to say that we have a great batch of graphic designers, videographers, writers and photographers here, willing to help us share photos and stories of their experiences across a range of social media platforms.

We want to invite you to follow us and see what this unique research organization has to offer to staff, interns and volunteers alike!

Instagram:

One of our Development and Communications interns, Taryn, is assisting with our Instagram account and is running with it - posting fantastic pictures of our ranch and environs. And although it may seem like we're in our own little world out here in the wilderness, we still like to keep in touch with the thousands of people who have supported us in one way or another over the years – so click here, follow us, and leave a comment if you like!

Facebook:

Over the course of a year we amass a huge number of great pictures of this beautiful green, and often snow covered place, and our other Development and Communications intern, Chelsea, has been working on making them into great ads for some of our programs on Facebook. That's right – no stock photos here! Remember to check our Facebook page for some of Chelses's creations – like them, share them, and tell your friends to follow us too! We also update our Facebook page regularly with public statements, articles, job openings and more...

Twitter:

Our IT Department is gearing up to launch the newest version of our website within the next few weeks, and one of the new features will be a live Twitter feed on our blog page. So for those of you that prefer Twitter to Facebook, you can keep up-to-date with all our research and news! In the meantime, follow us on Twitter here!

We're also hard at work on content for our blog, so check back regularly for more updates and articles soon!