College Awards Felton, Brown Grants

Author: Paul Barnwell

The Career Services Office (CSO) recently awarded student stipends for 2002 unpaid summer internships. Jona Repishti '04, Matthew Riemer '04 and Devin Zatorski '04 were the recipients of $2,000 Felton Family scholarships, while 22 Middlebury College juniors from the classes of 2002.5 or 2003 were awarded the $3,000 Ronald H. Brown '62 awards.

Riemer will be spending the summer alongside former United States President Bill Clinton as intern to his personal assistant. Clinton, whose office is located in Harlem, has nine paid staffers and nine interns, Riemer said. "My job will focus around the management of the office, and most importantly, around Bill Clinton's personal life," Riemer said, adding that he expected to travel from time to time with the former president, run errands and have a voice in Clinton's daily activities.

Riemer, a devoted Clinton supporter, is ecstatic about the opportunity to interact with one of his idols. "I expect to learn more about politics in three months than I have by avidly reading up on politics in the past twenty years," he said.

Repishti, who hails from Albania, will be returning home to work for the Balkans Youth Link (BYL), a United States-based nonprofit organization. The BYL, she said, works to "empower the youth by working across ethnic lines for peace and stability in the Balkans."

During the summer of 2001, Repishti added, the BYL piloted a new program in Kosovo called the YouthLink Leadership Institute (YLLI). Repishti will be working at this summer's YLLI in Tirana, Albania. She called the program a "boot camp" for aspiring local community leaders with hopes of easing the "reintegration for the plethora of ethnic groups."

"I resided in Albania during the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo," Repishti said. "I volunteered in refugee camps and have been interested in understand and working for the crisis ever since."

Zatorski will reside in Washington, D.C., for the summer and intern with ABC News' Washington-based Justice Unit. Zatorski, who has served as both the News Editor and Associate Editor at The Middlebury Campus, said he is looking forward to testing the broadcast media environment to "gauge whether it's something to consider post-graduation."

Adi Raval '98, a field producer on the justice beat of World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, will act as Zatorski's summer supervisor. Zatorski met Raval in January at The Grille, starting several months of communication between the two. "He assured me that I'd get a real taste of broadcast reporting. I couldn't be more excited about working for Adi," Zatorski said.

The Felton and Brown scholarships, according to the CSO Web site, are designed to "integrate liberal learning and career awareness, create linkages between academic work and the world of work outside the academy." The final mission is to "increase the visibility of Middlebury College among employers and other institutions."

The competitive application process requires students to submit proposals that include learning objectives, budget estimates and a description of internship responsibilities. Scholarship winners are then expected to log 300 hours of service between the end of spring semester and the beginning of the fall semester.

The 22 juniors who garnered the Ronald H. Brown '62 scholarships will intern in seven states and eight different countries, including Cameroon, Costa Rica, France and Mexico. Participating in a variety of different career fields, the interns will sample business, communications, government, health care, law and technology design and programming, among other specialties.

Margaret Aleks '03, Julia Assael '03, Rowena Barrett '03, Rob Chisholm TR, Kevin Coll '02.5, Shihani DeSilva '03, Gabriel Epperson '02.5, John Geisler '03, Simon Issacs '03.5, Brianne Jenkins '02.5, Katherine Milgram '03, Glenn Olds '03, Alice Quist '03, Joseph Schine '03, Kathryn Seely '02.5, Trevor Snapp '02.5, Andrea St. John '03, Kaleb Tamiru '03, Padma Ugbabe '03, Jessica Warren '03, Damian Washington '03 and Zachary Wyman '02.5 were the recipients.