UA grad: Internship unpaid but experience priceless

Billy Fleming speaks with the Dalai Lama on the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville campus in May 2011.
Billy Fleming speaks with the Dalai Lama on the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville campus in May 2011.

— A former student-body president at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville now has what he said is “the best internship in the world,” next to the West Wing of the White House.

Until August, Billy Fleming, 27, will work with theDomestic Policy Council, located in the Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Some days he organizes events, others he’s the lead researcher into an issue of his choosing.

“Every day, you’re ensconced in the shadows and reminded of those who served in similar positions before you, and you get to doit alongside a brilliant, energetic staff that tackles some of the most important issues of our day,” Fleming said in an e-mail, the only way he’s accessible to the media, per White House regulations.

He hails from Fort Smith, where his father is self-employed in sales and marketing, and his mother just left the real estate business andis a restaurant server.

“It’s a tremendous experience for him,” said Fleming’s dad, Bill Fleming, 58, “just from the exposure to getting to see the inner workings of the government, and just the people and probably the friendships he’ll develop for a lifetime.”

Billy Fleming’s mom, Jacky Fleming, 56, said she doeswell to get a few text messages from her son during the week.

“An intern’s life is crazy,” she said. “He’s working about 70 hours a week sometimes. It’s a random text or phone call, or ‘Hey Mom, can you send me a package?’ I got that one yesterday.”

Her care packages are of-ten filled with food and basic household necessities and always a “huge bag of sunflower seeds,” she said. White House internships are unpaid, and her son pays for housing, transportation and meals.

Billy Fleming, who graduated from UA in 2011 and now is a graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, took a second job in the spring to save money for this summer.

“I had to be a little creative, but when you’re offered an opportunity like this, you’ll do almost anything to make it work,” he said.

Fortunately, he can rely on a $32,000 stipend from the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration. The stipend came with his Dwight D. Eisenhower Graduate Transportation Fellowship, which is separate fromhis gig at the White House.

He has used some of the money to pay for living expenses in Washington and in Austin. The rest goes toward his research into mega-regions and how communication among them can help forecast the next recession orlarge-scale natural disaster.

The fellowship, Fleming said, “played a large part in my ability to accept this internship offer.”

He said the first day of his internship foreshadowed what his summer’s work would be like.

“It was incredibly fastpaced, demanding, and before I had a chance to look up, it was over,” he said.

The Executive Off ice Building is nearly a century and a half old. The office he shares with other interns is a flight up from the vice president’s ceremonial office. Fleming has access to the building’s bowling alley, built in 1955 on the basement level. He hasn’t formally met President Barack Obama, but has been in the same room with him several times.

“It was a bit surreal, but a great reminder that they’re all just people too,” he said.

The White House internship program is well-known as an entrance to a career in Washington.

Shin Inouye, the White House director of specialty media, said in an e-mail that former interns have gotten jobs at the White House and elsewhere in the administration. She would not disclose an exact number.

Monica Lewinsky, known for her dalliance with former President Bill Clinton, was a White House intern before landing a paid job there.

Though a job in the administration would be ideal, Fleming said, he will return to UT-Austin in the fall for his last year of graduate school. There he studies community and regional planning.

He described his route through school as “rather circuitous.” He has been a landscape and urban design intern in Jerusalem and studied for two years at West Point, the Army military academy in New York.

As part of his studentbody president duties at UA, Fleming met the Dalai Lama.

“He was part of the official meet and greet,” Fleming’s mom said. “There’s this great picture of the Dalai Lama putting his scarf on him.”

The younger Fleming worked closely with UA Chancellor G. David Gearhart, who thought highly enough of Fleming to write him a recommendation letter for the White House internship.

“His impact on the quality of student life and discourse was exceptional; his efforts regarding sustainability, diversity, and development initiatives visionary,” Gearhart wrote.

Fleming has about two weeks left in Washington, but he’s already thinking about what is next.

“I’ve always had a desire to be engaged in public service, and I know I’ll look for ways to do that in the future,” he said. “If an opportunity were to arise that allowed me to come back here and work again for this administration, I’d pick up and movein a heartbeat.” Chelsea Boozer is the editor in chief of The Daily Helmsman, the independent student newspaper at the University of Memphis. She grew up in Marion, Ark. She is to graduate in December.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 13 on 07/29/2012

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