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and to further articulate what they believe can be done to overcome those obstacles.

As co-lead on the project, I spent the first half of my fel-lowship researching political theories of democratic government and citizenship, and the second half developing programming to engage participants in discussion around critical questions about the respon-sibilities of both government and citizens in a democratic society. In the final week of my fellowship, I presented the programming at the Network’s National Conference at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park, New York and was able to collect data from 150 participants.

My work on Government By and For Millennial America allowed me to engage deeply with the political theories of citizen-ship, and use that research to explore how those theories can be applied in day-to-day democratic life. While it is easy to discuss how a citizen should behave in an ideal democracy, it’s difficult to analyze how the political institutions that are supposed to promote them hinder those ideals of engagement.

In addition to my work on the Government By and For Millennial America programming, my responsibilities included blog-ging weekly, researching and developing my own policy proposal, and helping to update the Institute’s publication database. Through my office, I was also able to meet journalist Amy Goodman and tour

R OGER W IEAND , ‘14

At first, I was skeptical about my work with the Disaster Accountability Project. I had worked with Ben for five months prior to arriving in Washington, DC, for the Georgetown Summer Semes-ter in Washington Program. My fellow students at Georgetown mostly had in-ternships with the federal government, on Capitol Hill,

or with leading non-profit organizations. DAP is an upstart; a feisty one, with a capable executive at its head, a prestigious group of board members, and an established history; but an upstart nonethe-less. Our team would either be working at Starbucks or at Ben's house. My friends at Georgetown were putting on suits every morn-ing and heading for the National Mall. I was a bit jealous at first.

My remote work between February and June developed the Disaster Policy Wiki into a workable, usable product – for the summer, I was reassigned to the Disability Rights Coalition team. I quickly became less than envious of my Georgetown colleagues; they mostly performed administrative or clerical tasks at their offic-es, but I was in the thick of DAP's work. I knew that what I was doing could really make a difference.

We collected contact information for hundreds (possibly over a thousand) disability rights groups, then performed mail-merges and cold calling to try and gain their support for a legislative initiative. We spent time researching certain districts upon which to focus our efforts. I personally wrote and rewrote many grant appli-cations for DAP, which sometimes included budgetary spreadsheets and narratives. We wrote posts for DAP's blog and website, and copy for other uses. We attended conferences and represented DAP. Despite being reassigned to the Disability Rights team, I re-mained the administrator of the Policy Wiki, and I took a lead role on that project as well, training new interns for that team, optimiz-ing the software, and repairing it when need be, working with the web hosting company. Because of my technical expertise, I also took on the role of “IT guy” as well, fixing the printer, repairing my boss's computer, and springing into action whenever a colleague's computer problems were getting in the way of work. I also took on technical tasks related to our work – for instance, I developed an online “sign-on” form that rights groups could use to join our initia-tive, and made changes to DAP's website when needed.

I gained a huge amount of diverse experience in my in-ternship with DAP that will be invaluable when I am building a ca-reer, and I know that both the Disability Rights and Policy Wiki teams made considerable headway this summer. Working with Ben Smilowitz and my fellow interns was a great experience, and I hope that the work that I performed this summer helps to bring DAP closer to its ultimate goal.