Ironic but true: One of the most highly regarded student internship programs in Washington, D.C., had a less than auspicious beginning involving midnight plumbing calls and trips to the shoe store. The year was 1972. Then-Assistant Professor of Government Alfred Balitzer was in D.C. for a week, helping transition four students into the inaugural semester of the CMC Washington Program that he co-founded with Alan Heslop, the Don H. & Edessa Rose Professor of State & Local Government. If there was a detectable crackling energy with its launch, there were also a few unexpected responsibilities that christened the professor’s capital project.

Balitzer found himself running the four students around town for shoes, neckties, and other necessities, because all of their worldly belongings had been stolen within minutes of their arrival in Washington. He also rented them an apartment. “That was the wrong thing to do,” he recalls with a chuckle, because next he would receive 6 a.m. phone calls from the landlord regarding clogged plumbing and other residential problems. Balitzer remembers asking himself, “Gee, did I get a Ph.D. for this?”

Occasionally, Balitzer would fly to Washington to hold classes and take the student interns on field trips to Gettysburg and to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s hilltop estate in Charlottesville, Va. “We had grand times,” Balitzer says. “I have fond memories of our expeditions.”

CMC’s Washington Program has come a long way since Balitzer shepherded those four interns through their D.C. odysseys 30 years ago. Assistant Professor of Government and Washington Program Director Elizabeth Spalding, stationed in D.C., administers the program and also serves as faculty, along with two visiting assistant professors of government: James Edwards Jr., a former congressional staffer, and John Haskell, a senior fellow of the Government Affairs Institute at Georgetown University.

Things have changed for students, too: Full-time internships, during which students are immersed in a work environment, are supplemented with two evening classes and a directed research project, providing the semester’s intellectual framework.

“The Washington Program has grown out of CMC’s mission to educate future leaders in both theoretical and practical ways,” says Spalding. “Some of our most prominent alumni, such as Congressman David Dreier ’75 and Leonard Apcar ’75, editor-in-chief of The New York Times’ digital division, are evidence of the program’s long-term success.”

Today, nearly 700 students from The Claremont Colleges have participated in the program. They have interned for representatives, senators, and congressional committees; political parties and campaigns; the White House, Justice Department, and other federal agencies; foreign embassies; think-tanks, interest groups, law firms, and trade associations; and C-SPAN, Congressional Quarterly, and other media outlets.

Most students participate in the program as second-semester sophomores or juniors, after they’ve taken CMC’s introductory and mid-level coursework in government and politics. After absorbing that information on campus, they put it to the test in real-life applications during internships in politics, economics, and government, seeing how the academic world and the real world work together.

“There is a distinct benefit to having a full-time internship,” Spalding says. “If the students are doing their jobs right, the employers forget they’re college students and consider them regular staff members. We see this happen time and time again.”

Wexler and Walker Public Policy Associates, a prominent Washington lobbying firm, confirmed Spalding’s theory in hiring Laura Vartain ’02, the firm’s first CMC intern, after she graduated.

“The fact that the Claremont students are here full-time allows them to get into a better rhythm with the office,” says Peter Holran, Wexler and Walker’s deputy general manager. “We’re very impressed with the program.”

On Sept. 10, 2001, Alexis Orton ’03 started an internship at the State Department, a little worried that her job might be a bore. “Many people thought I’d be stuck doing something with not much responsibility because it’s such a huge organization,” she recalled.

On Sept. 11, though, everything changed. Starved for employees with computer skills, the State Department handed the tech-savvy Orton real responsibilities: working as part of the operations center task force, she prepared political and military briefing documents for President Bush, Secretary Powell, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

“I was doing something really important,” Orton says. “That made me feel the best I ever had in my entire life.” It didn’t hurt that the State Department also flew her to military conferences in Germany and on the French Riviera.

Just blocks away, Andy Brehm ’03 spent fall 2001 in the White House media office. He produced talking points for White House spokespersons; attended press conferences and speeches; fielded questions from, and got coffee for, White House reporters; enjoyed face-time with Press Secretary Ari Fleischer; saw President Bush; and, on one occasion, rode in the presidential motorcade.

Andy Brehm '03, in front of Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House, interned with White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer in fall 2001. The White House was "forever changed" by Sept. 11, Brehm said.