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Alumni and Friends: La Follette Notes: Spring 2005
Student wins prestigious internship
La Follette School student Bryan Gadow is off to Kansas City, Missouri, as an intern with the L.P. Cookingham Management Internship Program with the city manager’s office.
“This is one of the oldest, most competitive city government internships,” says La Follette professor Dennis Dresang. “Bryan competed with a diverse group of finalists from some of the largest public affairs schools in the country.”
Bryan Gadow and Ashe Haté confer on a project. Gadow will spend a year as an intern with the city of Kansas City, Missouri, starting in June. Haté is interning with the Combat Blindness Foundation in Madison. The organization provides free cataract treatment in India, where Haté is from. Both students graduate in May, Gadow in public affairs and Haté in international public affairs.
The range of experiences the 12-month internship offers excites Gadow, who graduates in May with a master’s degree in public affairs. He enrolled in La Follette through the Accelerated Program, through which undergraduates can complete their master’s in a fifth year of study.
“The Cookingham internship is a thorough introduction to local government,” Gadow says. “I hope to learn more about community economic development, an area I want to pursue professionally.”
The program rotates interns through the offices for the city manager, capital improvements, budget and public works. In each of these offices, interns work closely with staff on projects ranging from researching hospitalization insurance, analyzing intersection collisions and working with media.
While working in the rotations, Gadow and the other interns will select and design a yearlong project that will significantly affect Kansas City government. This provides interns with an opportunity to work together in an area of interest to them.
Gadow, who is from Kaukauna, Wis., has been working for the Office of the President of the University of Wisconsin System, where he is involved in government relations and communications activities. He serves as chair of the Morgridge Center for Public Service Committee of Civic Participation, a UW-Madison group that examines strategies to incorporate civic learning into the curriculum.
“My training at La Follette has provided me with skills that I need to succeed in this position,” Gadow says. “The Cookingham interview committee was really impressed with the broad array of policy fields that I had experience with. But I think that my La Follette internship experience, working at UW System on ‘Brain Gain’ strategies for attracting young professionals to the state, was what sealed the deal. I look forward to applying what I learned at La Follette in my new position.”
Index to La Follette Notes spring 2005