Illinois Legislative Staff Intern Program (ILSIP)

Hi, everyone, and welcome. My name is Lee Brandon and I'm the Assistant Director of Admissions here at UIS. And I'm joined today by my colleagues from the Illinois Legislative Staff Intern Program and they'll introduce themselves in just a moment. But first, just a couple of housekeeping items to go over with you. Just so you're aware, this webinar is being recorded and it will be made available to you later on. So don't feel like you need to take frantic notes during.

For your privacy, though, please do not put anything in the chat about your personal application details. You can e-mail admissions directly if you do have questions about that. Otherwise, you may use a chat to ask any questions that you like. With that, I will let our panelists introduce himself.

Thanks, Lee. So thank you everybody for.

You have me, Jason.

How about now?

Hmm.

Just wait just a few minutes for him to fix his microphone and we'll get started.

How's that?

OK. Can you hear me now?

I can't hear you, Jason.

OK. So the people in the chat can hear you. That's good. I just can't hear you.

OK, so I just re clicked the link. I don't know if you can hear me now. I see that people in the chat said they could hear me. Maybe someone else can confirm that I'm still audible.

I can hear you now.

OK. Technical difficulties aside, thank you everyone for joining us today.

I'm here to speak with you about the ILSA program or the Legislative Staff Internship Program available here at UIS SO.

My name is Jason Haynes. I'm a program director in our Office of Graduate Intern programs. Our office handles a couple of of the internship programs available at UIS and specifically the ilse program.

Is a program that is intended to give you in depth experience within the Illinois legislature. So my intent with this program here today is to speak with you a little bit about UIS but also to dive deep into what actually the program, the ILSA program entails.

So.

Where is UIS? So for those of you that may be out of state, UIS is located in Springfield, IL.

We are Springfield, IL is the capital of Illinois. So we do have that close relationship with the legislature and have a really strong public affairs public admin background at the University of Illinois Springfield because of that.

We're relatively close to a large.

Population center in Chicago, about 200 miles South of Chicago, which is around a three hour drive by.

By car, we also have a train that it has a direct route from Springfield to Chicago each day.

Which is around another three hour transit. We're also close to Saint Louis, which is another population center a little bit closer at 90 miles. It's about an hour and a half drive, depending on where you're trying to get to in Saint Louis itself.

And Springfield itself is a fairly large city with about 120,000 people living in it. Now, UAS itself, even though Springfield is a little bit larger community, is kind of set on the outskirts of Springfield. And so our campus has a little bit more of a rural setting to it, which you'll see here in the next slide, which is actually a picture of our quadrangle, so kind of the center of campus. You see the colonnade there.

With a lot of the major buildings surrounding the center quad of campus, so.

As you can see, definitely not an urban setting, so.

UAS is a public university and it is part of EU of I system. So there's three main campuses to EU of I system. The main one is in Urbana, Champaign. There's another campus in Chicago, and then the one in Springfield with our institution, University of Illinois. So you really get the best of both worlds at UIS because even though you're still a part of the EU of I system, which has close to 100,000 students.

Across the entire system, UAS is a much more close knit smaller institution. And So what you're going to get with that is much smaller class sizes and you're also going to have a lot more of a one-on-one relationship with your professors as well. They're much more accessible than what you might find at a larger institution. And then another one of our claims to fame is that we have been regularly been named the number one public regional university in Illinois. So high quality education at UIS as well.

So speaking specifically about the ILSIP internship. So this internship program offers a paid internship opportunity within the Illinois legislature. Now our program hires.

24 interns each year. So this is a 10 month placement that goes from September to June and we are limited to just those 24 positions. So it is a pretty competitive program as well to get into.

We have placements within the partisan Staffs or the non partisan research unit at the legislature. So with the partisan stabs you're you're going to be on the Illinois House, Democrat or Republican Staffs or you'd be in the Illinois Senate.

Democrat or Republican Staffs, so.

This is really going to get you some real legislative experience. You're going to experience the the craziness of.

Obsession with how laws are actually made, the committees where a lot of this work is done, the relationships with the staff, where you're going to come out of this internship with the real great understanding of what happens kind of behind the scenes at the Illinois General Assembly. This is going to help increase your professional network as well, a lot of the people that work in government or or I should say a lot of our former ILSIP interns.

Are still working at the legislature on a full time basis.

Kind of amazing going down to the legislature and you get to talking with people and you find out that they were I'll sub interns at one point. So it's a great pipeline for you if.

Legislative experience is something that you are interested in that can help kind of get your foot in the door. As I mentioned before, it is a 10 month placement, so each cohort begins at the beginning of September and goes all the way through June. So the first few months of the internship it is kind of getting your feet wet, kind of understanding the insurance and outs.

You actually will go through a seminar class in the fall semester as well, where you're going to get to learn a little bit more in depth about the Illinois General Assembly itself.

Once January hits, that is when session begins. That's when the General Assembly begins to meet and the actual work of government. The wheels start turning, so that's when things really start to get busy.

January through through May when session is in place.

Umm, so even though you are not.

Necessarily seeking a degree at UIS, you are still able to gain 4 credit hours of graduate credits at UIS. This is provided to you tuition free. So this is a part of the benefits that you would receive as a part of the internship. And currently you receive two graduate credits for the seminar class that you take in the fall.

And then you receive an additional 2 credits for the actual internship in the spring, even though you're in the internship for the entirety of the September to June time frame.

Now, speaking specifically about some of the work that you can complete as a part of this internship. So if you are selected for the partisan Staffs, you're going to be working alongside the Democrat or Republican Staffs in the House or Senate. So some of that work can include analyzing bills, drafting legislation, researching issues you might be evaluating, budget requests, doing press and constituent services.

Or you're just providing general support to legislative members. So for a lot of our interns, you will get trained in a lot of these areas, but you will generally have like 1 main assignment within your staff. So you may have a primary assignment with the comms team. So you may be working on press releases, you may be working on those constituent relationships.

Excuse me, Manning the phones, things like that.

Excuse me?

So there's a lot of cool work that you can be doing as a part of this internship here.

I've heard a lot of great stories that some of our interns have completed one intern that completed last year.

He was telling me that one of the the the coolest moments that he experienced was when he actually had a memo that he had helped author be read into the record at a committee meeting. So anything that enters the record is obviously going to be a part of the permanent record of.

The legislature in the state of Illinois. So he felt pretty proud that he had had a hand in crafting this memo that you know is going to be able to be looked back on for for many, many, many years to come.

So, so based on your strengths or your desires, what you want to get out of the internship, you're going to be have that main assignment. But like I said, there's a little bit of a rotation with interns and so you're going to be trained in a lot of these areas and be able to accomplish a lot of these tasks by the end of your your internship there.

The other opportunity that you have if you're not interested in the partisan side of.

Of politics. You have an opportunity to be selected with the Legislative Research Unit.

And with this, you'll be working with the Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability or COGFA. So that's basically the, the name, the acronym for the Legislative Research Unit. So this is a unit at the at the legislature that that basically works across party lines.

Umm, you know, there may be some legislation that's coming up for consideration and there may be people from different Staffs that may need to find out the history of of legislation within that given content area and so you you'll be expected to go back and do some research and provide.

You know, basically a memo to these Staffs on the on the history and and understanding of that type of work.

There's also just regular reports that this unit will produce. You know, they they.

Produce research based on impact of various tax policy. I know that one of the things that was the big project that they were working on this year was the the reporting on the Illinois gaming laws. So if you're not familiar Illinois just pass some legislation recently that allows gambling within state lines and so the taxation on that gambling.

Is obviously a new source of revenue for the state of Illinois, so.

This being a new source of income, there's a lot of questions as to you know, whether the the way the bills were written, if they can expect the the revenue from from the taxation of of gambling to actually be within lines of of what is actually coming in. So that's that's one of the things I know they're working on, but it's a lot of those things that.

You know, is basically providing information to the legislators so they can make better informed decisions.

So interns that are selected for this one are typically.

Stronger riders and maybe have a little bit more of an interest in legal research.

There's going to be opportunities for you to work kind of by yourself. You might be given a project to do some research, but obviously there might be some bigger projects where you'll need to collaborate as a team.

So some of the main benefits of the program itself.

Already spoke a little bit about the the graduate credits, but you do take that seminar class in the fall.

The class is currently taught by someone who was a special advisor to Governor Pritzker.

And so a lot of the class over the past semester was he was bringing in people as guest speakers. And so there was a lot of guest speakers where they had a lot of Q&A sessions where they were able to ask some questions and really get a lot of insider info on on the the inner workings of government. This is a paid internship, so you do receive a monthly stipend which is currently worth up to 3300 dollars.

Pre tax, so pretty nice stipend there for each month that you're on the contract. And it's also important to note that during this internship.

While you are considered technically an employee of UIS because UIS is the one that's actually distributing the the benefits to you, you're also considered a UIS student. So even if you're not necessarily seeking a degree at UIS, you are going to be considered a student at UIS. So.

You'll have access to the student insurance program. You'll also have access to all the other benefits that would be considered for a current on on ground students. So for example, the Recreation Center is available to you. If you need services from health services, those are available to you. You can use any of the amenities in the student union if you're on campus, things like that. So you you are considered a UIS student.

And another thing to consider is that if you are someone who took out student loans in your undergraduate studies, then this is a way for you to help defer the payment of those student loans. So while you're in the internship, you're considered a student, a full time student actually, and so this can help you defer those payments for your student loan as well, if that's something that you took part in.

So how do you apply to this program?

Your first step is going to be to apply to UAS as a non degree seeking student and you can do that through the link right there uis.edu. Apply and you'll have the opportunity to apply either as a degree seeking student or non degree seeking student.

You will have the opportunity to complete the I'll sub application regardless of whether you apply as a degree seeking or non degree seeking student. However, most of our interns are not also seeking.

A graduate program. So if you're looking to do just the ILSA internship then you would apply as a non degree seeking student.

So the application requirements are to fill out the application for Ilsip itself.

We do require a resume to be submitted as well, and then we also require 3 letters of recommendation in addition to a writing sample.

Excuse me?

So once you complete all of those requirements.

Our office basically does a brief review of.

Your credentials and determines whether you are eligible for the program or not. And then what we do is we actually will submit all of our eligible candidates to the various Staffs at the placement. So the way that our our program works is that you're applying to our program.

You know, our criteria is very basic in terms of program eligibility, but we actually will pass your resume.

Application letters of recommendation on to the Staffs and then they are the ones who decide whether they want to interview you or not. So the interviews will actually take place with the various Staffs, and those take place in late March, early April.

The application deadline is March 1st, so to ensure that you are able to receive full consideration for the program, you just need to make sure that you have submitted all the materials by March 1st.

However, with this program we will continue to take applicants and our goal is to fill every one of the 24 positions.

So even though most of the interviews will take place in late March, early April, if we do have some positions that are unfilled as of yet, we will try to fill those positions, you know throughout the summer, maybe even into into September if if we still have a position so.

If you're if you think that you maybe have missed the deadline, I would say just go ahead and apply because there still may be some opportunities left.

To to to potentially still gain the internship.

So with that, that kind of covers the basics of the program. If you do have any questions, please feel free to reach out to either myself. I can be reached at gpsi.mail@uis.edu or Brandy Lane, who is actually the director of the Office of Graduate Intern Programs and the main.

The the main director for the ILSA program and she can be reached out to through her e-mail address therebelane54@uis.edu.

So with that, I can answer any questions that may have come into the chat.

And if there aren't any, then I appreciate everybody's time and appreciate you learning a little bit more about the ILSA program. Hopefully we can learn a little bit more about you in the application process.

All right. So if you have any questions, please put those in the chat.

All right. Well, it looks like maybe we don't have any questions. So I want to thank everyone for joining us today. And thank you, Jason. I know you're a little under the weather. So thank you.

And we will sign off, so have a good day.

Thank you.