December 13, 2011 update of the December 2, 2011 announcement (pdf)

Los Alamos Study Group Winter/Spring 2011 Internships

Additional details, reminders, and considerations from the Study Group to internship applicants:

• If you are interested please be sure and write a letter of application (no more than one page, email preferred) to Trish Williams-Mello by no later than Friday, December 16.  This is the first thing you need to do.  In a page or less, we want to learn a little about you (any particular skills and interests, your grades, your major, your work experience if any; please attach a resume or transcript if one is handy), why you might want to work with us (this is difficult to really know), how well you understand who we are, and we want to see a little bit of your writing.  In the original announcement we didn’t spell this out – that was sort of a test in itself.
  
  
• Trish or Greg will contact you if we think there is a good match between us.  If so, we will want to meet you and I am sure you will want to meet us, before deciding to go ahead with the internship.  Those meetings would be on Friday and Saturday, December 16 & 17.
  
  
• The December 2 announcement initially said these internships involved 16 hours of work each week for 14 weeks.  We scaled that back to 150 hours total, spread over the course of the semester in a manner that fits both the LASG and your school schedules.  All things being equal, we prefer a steady 10 hours/week.  You will need additional time for the academic requirements for the internship.
   
• There are two “paid” stipends available at $500 for the semester.  There also could be additional (unpaid) positions available for credit if you are accepted here and sign up for the credits.  We aren’t faculty of UNM and everything depends on how we assess your potential contribution to our mission.
  
  
• In terms of the academic requirements, Peace Studies coordinator Desi Brown writes: “You can then either sign up for PCST 400 or possibly through your major (if they have a similar kind of course).  We (Peace Studies) will meet with those of you intending to do this internship to make sure that all of the proper procedures are done on our side of things.  These meetings will occur AS SOON AS Los Alamos Study Group has made their decisions.”  Work with Desi and keep him informed!
  
  
• We will make those decisions by Monday, December 19.
  
  
• Desi continues: “If you (as a student) find that you are not a good fit with LASG (or vice-versa), please don't hesitate to contact Peace Studies anyway as we have access to a large number of additional organizations that are looking for qualified grad and undergrad students exploring various areas of Social and Environmental Justice.  Most are unpaid (and as such, only require 120+ hours of work), but all will get you 3+ hours of 400 level academic credit for actively participating in something that you are interested in.  We will be available for meetings after Dec. 20th and all the way up to the start of the spring semester.”
  
  
• What will interns do, what will they learn, and what external connections can they make?  The announcement reads:

  These two interns will assist the Study Group in expanding and amplifying our outreach to members of Congress, journalists, and political leaders in New Mexico.  They are highly responsible positions that can make significant contributions to nuclear disarmament.  Prior issue knowledge is not required.

The short answer to what you would do is: it depends – on you and us and external circumstances we can’t (by definition) control. 

We are still finalizing our program for the first half of 2011.  The details partly depend on what happens in Congress, in our litigation against the Department of Energy (DOE) and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), on funding, and other factors.

Our interns need not be highly knowledgeable about nuclear policy issues, nor will they become so!  Interns will be doing “routine” organizing, communications, and research work – making small contributions to a larger picture, the truths of which only emerge gradually and partially to all of us.

For example, we need to be sure certain journalists and congressional offices have access to information we have.  We need to set up meetings in New Mexico and elsewhere.  We need a potentially very wide range of specific factual information to incorporate into fact sheets and briefings.  We need certain web pages set up. 

We are, as we must be, as interested in alternatives to nuclear weapons investments as in the details of those nuclear investments.  We have been involved in energy supply issues and regional economic issues for decades, and our nuclear policy work engages deeply with questions about the future of this state, its nuclear weapons laboratories, and the necessary transition we must make away from a climate-killing way of life.  Recently a group of newspaper editors asked us for our alternative, non-nuclear plan for the New Mexico economy.  We have sketches, but we don’t have them brought up to date.  Perhaps you will help us with bits of targeted research.

In sum, you will not be stuffing envelopes.  We are asking you to help with skilled, interesting work connected with real-world political choices, working directly or indirectly with Congress, local leaders, the federal executive, and perhaps the courts.  Our work develops and rewards a certain maturity, intellectual and otherwise.  We suspect that is where the value of the internship will primarily lie, not so much in our grand ideas.  Castles in the air are fine, but we are also putting foundations under them, and that is primarily what you would be doing.

• Our office is in the front part of our home in the UNM area.  Also, we have cats.  If either of these is a problem, this internship is not for you.