Youth Civic Engagement Research and Advocacy Summer Internship

This program will bring together an initial class of high school students for a five-week summer
internship at Rice University. The internship will focus on high school voter registration and
youth civic engagement and will involve research and advocacy work. Interns will work under
the direction of Dr. Marschall, Director of Rice’s Local Elections in America Project (LEAP) and
Dr. Vann, Director of Community Partnerships, Center for Civic Leadership (CCL), and will have
additional mentoring from Rice University students and community partners.

Students will work on two projects during the summer program. The first one involves the
development of informational and educational materials on local elections and local elected
officials. Students will conduct research on local government to better understand what
different officials elected to city, county, and school district positions do and how the policy
decisions they make shape local residents, particularly BIPOC, youth, and other groups that
have historically been underrepresented in these elective offices. As part of this research,
students will also organize meetings with staffers who work for these elected officials, other
administrators who work in local government, and community organization members who
work on local policy and advocacy issues. Based on this research, students will create
educational materials (factsheets, videos, infographics, etc.) that will be disseminated to high
school and college students. The objective of this work is to inform young people in greater
Houston about how local government impacts their lives, why they should care about local
elections, and how they can inform themselves about candidates and issues in local electoral
contests.

The second project is an advocacy plan for getting universal compliance with Texas’ high school
voter registration law in HISD high schools. Students will familiarize themselves with the law,
read several recent reports and issue briefs on how high school voter registration has been
implemented across districts and schools in Texas, what compliance looks like across the state,
what steps have been taken to increase compliance with the law, and what proposals have
been made to not only increase compliance (and thus youth voter registration), but also
incorporate more civic education programming along with high school voter registration.
Students will work with other stakeholders to determine what the best options are for
achieving 100% compliance and increasing civic education in HISD schools and develop an issue
brief that they (and other students and stakeholders) can use to influence relevant decision
makers to adopt this plan.

The internship will start on June 14 and run through July 16 (5 weeks). Interns are expected to
work between 10-15 hours per week. We hope to be able to have some meetings in person on
Rice University campus, but much of our work will be done remotely via Zoom, email, and other
platforms. There will be regular meeting and work times each week, but students will be able to
schedule and organize some of the work themselves.
Students will receive a $500 stipend for participation in the internship program.

How to apply for the LEAP/CCL Internship:

Please submit a current resume and a cover letter that explains why you’re interested in the
internship, what if any, relevant education and experience you have, and why you think you are
a good fit for the program to Prof. Melissa Marschall (marschal@rice.edu). Please include the
name, title and contact information (especially phone number) for a teacher, mentor, or
supervisor who is willing to serve a reference. This person should be able to speak to things like
your work ethic, motivation, experience working in teams, and potential for success on this
project. Deadline for submitting applications is 5:00 pm, May 7, 2021.