CAPITOL INTERNSHIP ENDOWMENT WILL GUIDE FUTURE POLITICAL LEADERS

Program honors former instructors Ballenger and Browne

Two political leaders who have influenced hundreds of former CMU political science students will have an effect on future students through an endowment in their names.

The William S. Ballenger III and Dr. William P. Browne Capitol Internship Program Endowment will benefit students and political science majors in CMU’s College of Humanities and Social and Behavioral Sciences beginning in the fall 2008.

The endowment will place students in 15-week internship programs within the Michigan Senate and House of Representatives. Students will have firsthand interaction with current public policy issues in state and federal government and opportunities to learn how policy is molded through public opinion, political leadership, interest group advocacy, legislative and executive branch processes, and media coverage.

“Many students in the seminars that I taught showed interest in internship opportunities in Lansing, but did not know how to go about applying for and securing one,” Ballenger said. “It was hit-and-miss as to whether they would even be able to obtain a position, and I realized that there was nothing established at CMU to encourage and offer guidance and financial support to these students. It is my hope that this endowment will be an organized process of applying for and gaining opportunities to work in Michigan government.”

Ballenger (pictured left), editor of Inside Michigan Politics, served as the Robert and Marjorie Griffin Endowed Chair in American Government at CMU from 2003-07. He is a former state representative and senator, director of the State Department of Licensing and Regulation,
and a former state racing commissioner. He also served as deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in President Gerald R. Ford’s administration.

Browne (pictured right) taught political science at CMU for more than 30 years and was instrumental in establishing both the master of public administration and internship programs within CMU’s Department of Political Science. Browne passed away in 2005 after a 12-year battle with chronic myelogenous leukemia.