As the semester draws to a close, so too does the first year of the Policy and Social Impact Fellows Program at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. Launched in October 2023, the co-curricular initiative is part of a growing network of similar programs launched at universities nationwide in partnership with the Volcker Alliance-NextGen Service Corps initiative, and is open to any Pitt undergrad with a passion for public service, community engagement, and social justice.
The first cohort brought together 15 students from varied disciplines, class years, and academic backgrounds. Participants received hands-on skills and leadership training, personalized mentorship from involved faculty and alumni, and worked on teams to partner with local organizations on community-engaged projects.
Here's a little more about the experience in their own words:
Yali Beit-Arie is working on the Allegheny County Policing Project (ACPP) through the Center for Analytical Approaches to Social Innovation (CAASI). A senior majoring in sociology and philosophy, Beit-Arie was primarily interested in the Fellows Program because of its emphasis on community-engaged experience.
“Especially as I look ahead to graduation, the opportunity to bridge (my) academic work with work that directly impacts the community in positive ways, led by community practitioners… was a major draw for me.”
The ACPP was established to increase police transparency in Allegheny County, creating a consolidated data platform to help citizens navigate the hyper-fragmentation of policing in the county. The students have learned numerous skills they can not only use on this project, but also take with them in academic and work experiences to come.
“In the last few weeks, we have been attending a Python workshop—learning how to use it in context (and) utilize coding to work with and present the data. This helps us document the steps we take so that other community partners will be able to replicate the process for future questions, which goes back to that central aim of transparency.”
For Beit-Arie, who hopes to pursue a career in public service after graduation, the Fellows Program helped him focus his professional interests while getting hands-on experience.
“It has been a great lesson in proving that high-impact change happens at every level, and often the local work can be even more important than the broad macro-level. Having a taste of what that looks like has been really valuable.”
Sophomore education major Stephany Andrade and her team worked to assess the strategic plan of the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh. The group evaluated the organization’s progress on goals set in 2020-2021, making sure benchmarks were being met in a timely and ethical manner and advising how best to meet organizational targets over the next three years.
“This program allows you to take what you’re interested in and apply it to so many different things,” Andrade shared. “Working with the World Affairs Council has been amazing because I got to use my experience as an educator and apply that to something I am interested in. I want to work in nonprofit work and support my students to know the importance of the community.”
Andrade also serves as Pitt’s NextGen Ambassador for the Volcker Alliance and was recently awarded the Volcker Government Internship Award. Ambassadors keep their peers informed about upcoming events and opportunities, coordinate service activities on their home campus, and engage with other ambassadors across the network. Here at Pitt, Stephany has been working to increase knowledge of public service and voting in the university community and will host an event on campus about these initiatives later this month.
Junior Simon Wang worked with the Allegheny Department of Human Services (DHS) on a project focused on standardizing the services of Pittsburgh area homeless shelters. An economics and psychology major, Wang hopes to pursue a career in research after college and saw the program as a way to combine an interest in academic research with practical application.
“In some ways, a problem with academia is it is so detached from community partners… This specific opportunity was a great way to balance research and community and put both together in an issue that I care about.”
The team studied the lack of standardization in Pittsburgh’s homeless shelters, including services provided and hours of operation, using their research to shape recommendations for DHS to serve unhoused community members more equitably and efficiently. Wang believes the program was even more fulfilling than he expected it to be, and would encourage any interested undergraduate student to apply.
“I would say to absolutely apply. I feel really good about the relationship I’ve made with DHS… and it’s really cool to work on something that is meaningful for the community at large. The benefit of doing the program is not just the contact with a community partner, but also establishing relationships with the team. The other members and I worked really closely together.”
Renee Narushoff worked on the Fire Preparedness with Emerging Technologies project through The Congress of Neighboring Communities (CONNECT). A Pittsburgh native and senior majoring in political science, Narushoff was eager to learn more about local policy development initiatives in her hometown. Students researched Allegheny County’s readiness and ability to mitigate fires, especially those caused by emerging technologies such as electric vehicles, solar panels, and lithium-ion batteries, and interviewed stakeholders including fire chiefs, municipal officials, and sustainability professionals.
The team presented their research and policy recommendations to the CONNECT board at the end of March, one of the highlights of the program, according to Narushoff. She also shared how this experience helped broaden her understanding of the job market as she prepares to graduate.
“The most rewarding part for me was presenting the final deliverable,” she shared. “I really enjoyed talking to the municipal officials and getting the chance to explain the research that I had done. Before, I never really considered public policy as an industry I could work in, but now that has changed.”
Undergraduate students interested in joining the Fellows Program for the 2024-2025 academic year can apply online or contact Undergraduate Programs Coordinator Jazmin Kent-Loera at JAK512@pitt.edu with any questions.