Feb 12, 2012 | 09:04
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Jan 12, 2010
D.C. center gives students taste of Capitol careers
Matthew Clawson, UCLA's 2010 Marshall Scholar, had an edge when it came to winning a coveted free ride to graduate school at Oxford next year.
Like Scott Hugo, the winner of the Rhodes Scholarship the year before, Clawson is an alumnus of UCLA’s Center for American Politics and Public Policy (CAPPP) in Washington, D.C., a program that the new Marshall Scholar said helped him win the Marshall Scholarship which put Oxford within his reach.
Students at the Center for American Politics and Public Policy stand at the entrance of the UC Washington Center building. In the back, wearing a hat, is Jim Desveaux, director of the Washington portion of the program. Photo by Marcie Ridgway Kinzel.
Other CAPPP participants have succeeded in going on to top federal agencies, including the departments of Justice and Education, the Peace Corps and other global organizations. Additionally, the program has helped place students with the Natural Resources Defense Fund, the Brookings Institution, the National Education Association and the American Enterprise Institute. Other alumni have stepped into positions in the media with CNN, NBC and ABC, among others.
"Many of our students have been admitted to top graduate and professional programs," said Political Science Professor and CAPPP director Joel Aberbach. "CAPPP alums have an outstanding record of academic and professional achievement, with many going on to careers in public service."
A mix of academics and real-world job training
Sponsored by the Division of Social Sciences in the College of Letters and Science, the Center for American Politics and Public Policy was founded in 1989 by Aberbach and strongly supported by then-Chancellor Charles E. Young, who helped secure the center a home in Washington, D.C.
CAPPP aims to take undergraduates beyond the typical D.C. internship experience through a program that combines academics and real-world, on-the-job training. "We place students in internships where they do substantive work that is not only relevant to the research they are doing for our main seminar, but also gives them a taste of the excitement and accomplishments that can come from a career in public service," Aberbach said.
Students intern in agencies, on key Congressional committees, as well as with top Washington, D.C., think tanks and non-governmental organizations. The goal is to help students stretch themselves — both academically and experientially. A key (and mandatory) component of the program is that students write research papers that often serve as “spring boards” to students’ later careers in public service, public policy and other fields, said James Desveaux, director of the Washington portion of the program since 2000.
Desveaux leads a class. The program combines academics with internships at federal agencies, on key Congressional committees as well as with top think tanks and non-governmental organizations.
“It’s remained pretty true to its original mission to introduce students to the idea of public service and give them a better understanding of public policy writ large," said Desveaux. "We try to be as intellectually diverse as possible.”
And while many CAPPP students are majoring or minoring in political science, an increasing number of students from other majors, from anthropology and economics to sociology, are taking advantage of the program.
Learning outside the classroom
Clawson, who is on his way to Oxford to study international relations, said the CAPPP program not only was integral to his winning the Marshall Scholarship that will completely subsidize his room, board, tuition and books, but it aided his personal and professional development in ways that were not possible simply by going to class everyday in Southern California.
Matthew Clawson, UCLA's 2010 Marshall Scholar, credits his Washington, D.C., experience with helping him develop personally and professionally.
Among other alumni of the program is Jonathan Lopez, who, after Georgetown Law School and a stint as assistant U.S. attorney in Miami, returned to D.C. to work in the white-collar fraud unit of the Department of Justice. He served as the lead federal prosecutor in the ENRON Broadband case in Houston two years ago.
Michael Falcone, who was the editor-in -chief of the Daily Bruin before joining CAPPP, interned at the Brookings Institution, then earned a graduate degree in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. After writing for the New York Times, he's now a reporter for Politico.
Norma Nava, an alumna of CAPPP and UCLA School of Law, was on the legal team that won a U.S. Supreme Court case last spring. Safford Unified School District #1 v. Redding involved a 13-year-old Arizona middle-school student who was strip-searched when authorities accused of hiding Advil.
Victoria Weatherford, a recipient of the Distinguished Senior Award presented by the UCLA Alumni Association, was one of three recent CAPPP participants who went on to Yale Law School. Alex Budak, another winner of this award, is currently in graduate school studying public policy at Georgetown.
"This is CAPPP’s 20th year. We've certainly had a distinguished group of students who embraced challenge and have continued on to significant accomplishments," Desveaux said.
Added Aberbach said: "I am most proud of the fact that the program has maintained a high level of academic excellence throughout its 20 years — challenging our students to do the best they are capable of doing — and then seeing them go on to become productive and accomplished citizens."
