One of the O’Neill School’s defining characteristics is quality, hands-on learning experiences. Two students this summer exemplified how O’Neill elevates education with placements beyond the classroom, helping improve communities in Indiana and across the country.
Ted Field received the Peterson Fellowship while completing his MPA at the O’Neill School in Indianapolis.
The Peterson Fellowship is a three-semester fellowship providing financial support for talented O’Neill graduate students to gain experience with the Indianapolis Mayor’s Office; IndyGo, the public transportation authority in Indianapolis; and Indianapolis International Airport.
Field started his journey as a Peterson Fellow with the Indianapolis Airport Authority, the body overseeing the airport, then moved to the mayor’s office. This summer he finished his time at IndyGo.
“It has been really phenomenal for me to try my hand at a bunch of different things,” Field said. “Right now, I’m spearheading a customer perception survey IndyGo hopes to roll out sometime next year. So far, I’ve been responsible for creating the scope of work and developing a pilot program so that we can test it and make sure that it’s going to work.”
In his stops across the Circle City, his hands-on experience went beyond what was offered in the classroom, all in complementary ways.
Field dipped his hands in photography and videography while with the airport authority, producing work that would end up in their “decade of excellence” video project.
At the mayor’s office, he worked primarily with the education team, reviewing applications for new charter schools in the city. He conducted research and analysis and was a part of the interview process these schools require.
Field’s fellowship allowed him to diversify his education with distinct learning opportunities unique to the fellowship, which have taken him beyond what he could learn in the classroom.
“To be able to take the concepts that I was learning in class, use my experiences at these places to talk about how things worked in my class to bring that experience there, it was really neat,” Field said.
His fellowship experience paid off in the classroom, too, when it came time for his cohort’s capstone project.
“Instead of writing a paper, our capstone group decided to do a video,” Field said. “We worked with the organization Indiana Vote by Mail. Because I was able to gather some of the experience doing videography at the airport, the group was on board with trying to do something a little bit outside the box and different, and something that honestly scared us a little bit going into it because it wasn’t the security blanket of writing a paper, but we were able to pull that off and feel pretty good about it.”
Field is not sure what is next, but he knows he wants to help improve his community. If anything, the Peterson Fellowship opened so many doors he will have a tough time choosing which one to walk through.
“The goal with going back to grad school and doing this program in general was to cast a wide net and allow myself the opportunity to say yes to multiple opportunities, which is what the Peterson fellowship has allowed me to do in tandem with that,” Field said. “If the Peterson Fellowship has shown me anything it is that there are so many different possibilities that most people don’t even know exist.”
Hannah Frome, an MPA student at the O’Neill School in Bloomington, is a member of the first cohort of students in the O’Neill D.C. Accelerator Program. The program combines O’Neill’s top-ranked MPA program with the experience of living and working in the nation’s capital.
After interning with Gallup this summer, Frome started with the Government Accountability Office at the end of August.
“I was actually able to get that internship just by talking to the Career Services Center, and they were able to connect me to one of the directors there, Cardell Johnson, who has a long-standing relationship with O’Neill. I’m going to be in the Natural Resources and Environment division, which I was told is about 30% O’Neill alums, including everyone on my project, which is pretty impressive.”
While taking classes through O’Neill in Washington, D.C., Frome will work with GAO to gather and analyze data regarding drone usage in sectors of the federal government.
“Without going into too much detail, a specific committee of Congress is interested in the research implications of whether government departments use drones for research or whether they don’t,” Frome said. “There’s some cybersecurity and other concerns related to using drones. So, the question is, is it worth taking on those risks, because of the research benefits that the government would get? Or does the risk outweigh the benefits?”
Frome is committed to improving the communities in which she is involved. This summer at Gallup she worked with a team committed to tackling food insecurity and diving deeper into studying inequality with Black Americans.
“I was primarily supporting the Gallup Center on Black Voices, which is a 100-year commitment that they’ve made to really understanding the lived experiences of Black Americans,” Frome said. “Traditionally, a lot of the research has been what I would call statistics, right? It’s just fact based. This is what the dropout rate is, this is what recidivism looks like. But there’s not a lot of information on how Black Americans are experiencing their lives on a day-to-day basis. So, Gallup is partnering with different cities and doing extensive survey research focused on understanding the Black experience.”
Frome developed research agendas for both the educational and environmental areas of the center and made sure the areas had century-long relevance as the center continues its work. In addition, she helped kick off a project studying food insecurity in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The results will be sent to the client, a large health system in the Dallas area, which will evaluate intervention methods they can take to lessen food insecurity in central Texas.
Frome’s O’Neill experience has been defined by saying yes to the many opportunities available. From jumping into that first D.C. Accelerator cohort to joining the board of Students for Equity in Public Affairs, getting involved has been crucial to her education.
“There have been multiple opportunities where professors have mentioned, ‘Hey, there’s this workshop coming up for learning scrum methodology,’ or there’s an event you can go to. Or showing up to all the Career Hub’s great opportunities to network with employers,” Frome said. “I think all the opportunities that O’Neill provides have gotten me in this position. I’m just incredibly well positioned going forward, and I’m really appreciative of that.”
The O’Neill School understands the importance of student internships, and—with your help—we’re committed to helping undergraduate and graduate students gain the skills only hands-on experience can bring. Because some internships are either unpaid or lowpaying, we have created internship funds designed to support students while they are applying their classroom knowledge in the professional workplace.
Please consider supporting student internships by donating to the Greater Good Internship Fund (Bloomington) or the Making a Difference Internship Scholarship (Indianapolis). Your gift allows students to gain valuable experiences that will prepare them for career success.
