Postcards Home: Meet the UAA crew headed to Juneau as legislative interns

This time every year, UAA joins the other two UA campuses in sending college students to Juneau to work as interns for members of the Alaska Legislature.

UAA is proudly sending five: German Baquero, Mark Simon, Kiana Morris, Kevin Prestegard and Trevor Gutierrez. With this story, we briefly introduce them and nudge you to watch for and read their "Postcards Home," personal reflections as they work the 90-day session in our state capital. Their stories will appear periodically in the Green & Gold News.

Readers may remember last year's UAA interns, Hans Rodvik (placed with Senate Majority Leader John Coghill), Victoria Yancey (placed with Rep. Chris Tuck) and Ruddy Abam (placed with Rep. David Guttenberg) and their intermittent field notes from the legislative front. Although the program has been alive since 1987, last year was the first time UAA invited its representatives to send personal reactions and insights about this unique opportunity to watch and participate in the legislative process.

The first session of the 29th Legislature begins Jan. 20 and runs through April 19. Interns parachute into Juneau in early January, looking for housing, finding their offices and meeting fellow interns and staffers. They earn 12 academic credits during the semester, plus a $5,000 stipend for expenses. Nine of the credits are pass-fail, based on their tenure with a legislator working 35 hours a week for 14 weeks. A weekly seminar, where they can debrief and analyze their work life, is graded A-F, led by UAS political science professor Glenn Wright.

Even as finals week was unfolding in mid-December, our 2015 interns were engaged in interviews with Senate and House staffers with openings on their teams. They were scouting for affordable accommodations via Craigslist and family friends. For some, it will be their first time away from home. For most, it is the closest they've ever been to the execution of political power. It is a huge education.

As of this writing, we can't tell you yet which student is with which legislator, where they found housing, or if they drove, ferried or flew to Juneau. All those details will unfold as they begin to drop us some "Postcards Home." We hope to feature one a week when the Legislature opens.

And now, meet the interns.

Mark Simon

Green & Gold News featured Mark just after Nov. 4 because of a special election-day role he played off-camera in the KTVA newsroom during the evening political coverage. He, along with political science professor Mary Mathie and high school student Will Nabors, were scrambling to deliver the latest and best information to reporters and news directors. UAA political science professor Forrest Nabors was a frequent target of their information as he served as a live, on-air political commentator on Election Night.

Mark is a fourth-generation Alaskan; his relatives helped settle the Colony Project in Palmer. He planned to go into logistics and supply chain management until he got into a political discussion with a high school teacher and discovered he loved the topic.

A college junior, already he has managed three legislative campaigns and worked between sessions in Rep. Max Gruenberg's Anchorage office. Juneau feels like the right next step to him; he hopes the connections he makes there may lead to professional job opportunities once he finishes his political science degree at UAA. Listen to an interview with Mark and fellow student German Baquero from KRUA radio's Student Storyboard's Nov. 21, 2014 edition.

German (pronounced Her-mahnn) Baquero

Mark Simon and German Baquero were guests on Student Storyboard because they were both bound for their legislative roles in spring semester. In addition, German and his teammate, Sam Erickson, had recently earned Madison Cup honors for their knowledge of the U.S. Constitution, an annual competition sponsored by the UAA Department of Political Science. Each took home pewter tankards with glass bottoms, in imitation of the vessel Madison actually used. As German explained, that glass bottom allowed Madison to eye his debating partners even as he took a sip from his tankard.

German was born in Florida and arrived in Alaska in 2005. His parents, both Columbian-born and working in the dialysis field, thought their two sons needed better academic opportunities than they were finding in Florida. Eagle River's new high school helped seal the deal when the family pulled up roots and made Alaska home.

German is a history and political science major with about two more years in school. His younger brother is now a freshman at UAA.

When we chatted in the lobby of the Administration-Humanities building lobby just after he'd finished finals in December, German said it didn't matter whose office he found a slot in. He said he cares what their principles are, but the opportunity to work in a legislative office is more about "learning to work for someone else and making them better off. If you can do that, regardless of their political affiliation, that will secure you the most experience."

Kevin Prestegard

Kevin Prestegard was born in Anchorage but spent lots of time Outside both in high school and college. He eventually came home to Alaska to finish up his college years. He is 24 years old.

The opportunity to intern in Juneau prompted this economics major/political science minor to delay his graduation until spring 2015 so he could participate. He finished up the very few credits he needed in fall semester with rock climbing and river rafting. (Hint: He knows how to have fun.)

Kevin sees a graduate degree in economics in his future. His dream job would be economic analysis and research, and he's blunt about his interest in Juneau. Ideally, he'd get a shot at doing some economic research for a legislator. While he's willing to do any work a legislator needs, from getting morning coffee to every administrative task they might imagine, he also hopes to get the chance to deliver a bit of economic research as a way to prove his value and to signal to future employers that he's got that skill set and has used it professionally.

Something interesting Kevin told me about his academic career here at UAA that seems worth sharing. I asked him if he thought he had the computer skills he needed for his future in economics research. That was met with a strong affirmative; precisely, "Yes! They shove it down your throat, here!" He was very happy about that. He has friends finishing economics degrees in other Northwest universities, and they haven't even been introduced to programs like Stata, ideal for data analysis. "They are still using Excel," he said. "The difference is Stata has all the formulas built in. "

Chalk one up for Kevin, and for UAA.

Kiana Morris

Kiana grew up in a small town in Minnesota. She chose UAA because the political science program here (she's a political science major/justice minor) included this legislative internship program. "Lots of political science programs don't offer anything like this," she said. Alaska's small population size makes this sort of up-close engagement possible, she said.

Kiana worked as a peer mentor in the residence halls and staffed the front desk during the holiday break. She serves as treasurer of the UAA College Republicans, and her face even graced some political ads in the last election cycle. The national Republican Senatorial Committee called, she said, looking for some young faces for the background.

She grew up an only child with a progressive father who loved to turn on the news and then discuss it afterward. She doesn't blame him for her conservative bent, tagging that attribute to the mandatory economics class she took in high school. "The teacher was notably liberal," she said. "It made me appreciate capitalism."

This won't be her first time serving in a state capitol. As a high school student in Minnesota, she worked a week as a page. She found legislative politics to be "fascinating." She's about to get a major dose beginning in January.

I asked her what her dream job would be in five years and she laughed: "A job" would be her dream. She is optimistic about Alaska's future, primarily because it is such a resource-rich state.

"Alaska has many energy resources," Kiana noted. "Hydroelectric-many communities are already using it. There's geothermal. Solar is expensive and not all that practical for Alaska. With wind, it depends. You have to shut the turbines down when the wind gets too strong. Plus energy prices go up at first, which is controversial."

She's definitely been giving energy some thought. She'll graduate in December 2015. The chance that her spring semester in Juneau may generate some contacts for a paid role in January 2016 is definitely on her mind.

Trevor Gutierrez

Trevor slipped off campus after finals and before we managed to get his photo and a brief interview. We'll add him here once we connect.

Written by Kathleen McCoy, UAA Office of University Advancement