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A LUMNI P ROFILES : A L OOK AT L IFE A FTER S KIDMORE

Johanna Barr ‘10

What does your job entail?

I'm a news editor at The Huffington Post, where I edit between 10 and 15 political articles a day. The news desk handles all the original reporting across the site's many sections, but I focus on politics because that's what I'm most interested in. I generally do a mixture of structural, line and copyedit-ing, and occasionally edit longer features.

Do you use what you learned in Govern-ment in your job now? Definitely. The classes I took at Skidmore strengthened my understanding of government and politics and I rely on things I learned there every day at work.

What kind of influence did your Govern-ment major have on what you did after college? What did you originally want to do after Skidmore?

I was actually an English major and a Gov-ernment minor, and that combination pre-pared me to work in political journalism. I was hoping to get a job like the one I have

now after I graduated in 2010, but I didn't expect it to happen so quickly.

How did you get to where you are now? Graduate work, etc. How did your Skidmore education help you succeed?

I did a bunch of journalism internships at home in New York City, starting the sum-mer after my junior year and continuing after I graduated. Each internship helped me get the next one until I got hired at HuffPost in March 2011. Skidmore helped prepare me to be a strong candidate for each of these posi-tions and succeed once I got them. As for graduate school, I started the part-time pro-gram at Columbia Journalism School in May, so I'm currently earning my masters while working full-time.

What classes were most interesting to you when you were in college? Who was your favorite professor?

My favorite thing about Skidmore is that virtually every department is strong and has something to offer, even if you're not a ma-jor or minor. Among my favorites were the Psychology of Politics with Ron Seyb, De-

constructing Britain with Tillman Nechtman, Evolutionary Psychology with Sheldon Sol-omon and Genetics with Bernie Possidente. I had about seven favorite professors in the English department and loved almost all the classes I took with them.

What is your favorite part of your job?

I get to edit articles that are read by millions of people. There's a lot of pressure -- if I make a mistake, people will definitely see it --but it's also really exciting, especially dur-ing an election year. Some of my favorite nights at work have been during the debates, the conventions and the Republican prima-ries. I love the reporters and editors I work with, and I really enjoy the atmosphere of our newsroom. It's also nice to work on the type of journalism that can only come out of Washington, D.C. without actually having to live there.

If you could have any job, what would it be? I'm going to be a cliche and say that in five years, I hope to be working at The New York Times. But I'm really happy where I am now, so we'll see.

Tim Lueders-Dumont ‘11

What does your job entail?

I am the Field Organizer for the Vermont Democratic Party in the geographic area of Vermont known as the "Northeast King-dom" (GOOGLE IT!) (in the northeast cor-ner of the state). My job both extremely simple and exceedingly complex and evolv-ing. It is my job to organize as many volun-teers as possible to accomplish the goal of reaching out to as many voters as possible. In terms of hours: I work seven days a week with no scheduled time off. Field Organiz-ers usually work 10-12 hour work days dur-ing the week with 8-10 hours on week-ends. Yet--it seems there is never enough time to get everything done. In a less de-fined and more intangible--and perhaps philo -folksy understanding--my job is to connect the state wide effort, or mantra, into cohe-sion and partnership with the local party and the political feeling of the local population at the county and town level. I am (roughly) the liaison between the statewide macro campaign effort and the local micro cam-paign effort--all under the umbrella of some-thing resembling the national party. My

main function is to organize, recruit, and train volunteers---all leading towards the "Get Out The Vote" effort as well as an on-going daily canvassing effort-- on foot and over the phone.

Do you use what you learned in Govern-ment in your job now? Yes--all the time.

What kind of influence did your Govern-ment major have on what you did after college? What did you originally want to do after Skidmore? An immeasurable amount of influence was delivered upon me by my focus in Government at Skid-more. The diversity and breadth of the de-partment allowed for a comprehensive and broad, yet specific and focused study of politics as a reality that exists in the daily lives of humans whether they are aware of it or not. Originally, after Skidmore I wanted to move to NYC to work with a Documen-tary filmmaker who was producing a film on the state of the Health Care System in the US (ESCAPE FIRE)----however--I was unable to fund this endeavor. I also wanted to get involved with the 2012 campaign and, via an internship I completed my Sophomore year with Congressman Peter Welch, I was offered a Job with the Vermont Democratic

Party as a Field Organizer.

How did you get to where you are now? Graduate work, etc. How did your Skidmore education help you succeed?

An unpaid college internship, my diploma and area of study in college, getting in touch with the right people and then being relent-less and persistent in pursuing the opportuni-ty that I wanted--also luck and good tim-ing. I started emailing and calling the cam-paign director for the Vermont Democratic Party in December of last year about my interest in getting involved in the 2012 cam-paign. The Gov professors were hugely inspirational in my pursuit of a job in the political realm--especially Ron Seyb and history professor Erica Bastress-Dukehart.

What classes were most interesting to you when you were in college? Who was your favorite professor? Such an unfair ques-tion: all of my gov courses, in their own way, allowed me to access a political state of mind. BUT----- Bob Turner's State and Lo-cal Government has been a huge help in analyzing data from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives. In Seyb's US Presidency Class we studied the 1912 elec-tion--one hundred years later and we are still