Mayor Annise Parker paid a visit to UH on Friday to speak with interns from the Hobby Center for Public Policy’s Civic Houston Internship Program. Since its inception, CHIP has placed more than 1000 interns in political offices.
The interns work an average of eight hours per week over the 15-week semester in offices with elected officials at the municipal, county, state or federal levels. Some interns are assigned to community service organizations and campaigns.
For the spring semester 26 students have been chosen for internships. A handful of them are returning interns to their same offices.
“Last semester, my main responsibility was ceremonial documents, which are certificates, letters and proclamations for the mayor,” said Shelby Hansen, a returning intern at the Mayor’s Communications Office. “This semester I do clippings, which means scrapbooking every article that mentions the mayor. I will be working on archiving photos for Rice for when she is not mayor.”
Bria Riley is another returning intern at Controller Ron Green’s office. She has now worked at both the city and state levels.
“As far as state level, when I interned, we would be out in the field all the time and not so much in the office,” Riley said. “It’s fast paced at the city level, the phones are always ringing. But at the state, it can be more relaxed some days because we are getting out of the office.”
Program director Renee Cross advocates her interns to meet their congressmen and form a relationship.
“If you have not yet met your congressmen do it as soon as possible!” Cross urged students. “It’s important to be connected.”
As part of the internships, students are required to work as volunteers at events for their offices. Mayor Parker urged students to take advantage of this and participate in as many volunteering opportunities as possible.
“I volunteered in college, and after graduating, spent most of my free time volunteering around the city,” Parker said. “The best training for being a council member I learned by volunteering and being involved with the city.”
As an advocate for the city, Parker said she is not fond of the question “What are you going to do after your term ends?” because she insists her job is a dream job.
“I love being Mayor. I love my job because it’s what I’ve always wanted to do,” Parker said. “Running the city of Houston is like running a state — there is so much more to it than most other smaller cities.”
Parker encouraged the student interns to find out what makes them happy and make an occupation of it, just like she did.
“Figure out what you’re most passionate about and act on it.”