Sunwater’s Intern Program

July 29, 2021  

  • Blog

About the Program

The Sunwater Internship Program hosts interns for programs on two fundamental topics: Congressional Reform and Rights and Liberties. Our goal is to provide a purposeful learning program structured into their intern experience to help them flourish as they begin their careers. Sunwater interns have the opportunity to attend internal meetings, local think tank events, professional workshops and Sunwater Institute public events.

Congressional Reform Program

Congress’s performance as an institution is critical to the nation and democracy worldwide. Sunwater conducts theoretical and applied research leading to improvements in Congress’s institutional knowledge, processes, decision making, and performance measurement. Sunwater develops tools, analytics, and datasets that are leveraged by Congress itself and partners with institutions conducting similar research.

While not focused on the day-to-day partisan policy debates, this program will be an excellent introduction to our “first branch of government”: how it is organized, how legislation is crafted and advanced, and how oversight is conducted over the executive branch.

Schools Involved

  • McGill University, Montreal, Quebec
  • DePauw University, Greencastle, IN
  • University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, VA
  • New York University, New York, NY
  • High Point University, High Point, NC
  • Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
  • American University, Washington DC

Rights and Liberties

Rights and liberties define the boundaries of state action and the obligations owed by states to citizens and by citizens to states. Sunwater explores the evolution of rights and liberties from prehistory up to the present day from a multidisciplinary perspective, using the insights of philosophy, law, history, the natural sciences. Sunwater explores the purposes and limits of rights, the potential conflict among rights, and the question of which rights should be protected.

Currently, there is a great deal of debate about human rights, constitutional rights, and related ideas about rights and liberties, so this is a most exciting time to be engaged in such research. This internship offers a chance to learn more about rights and liberties, to engage in original research, and to potentially publish that research.

School’s Involved

  • Christopher Newport University, Newport News, VA
  • George Washington University, Washington D.C.
  • George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
  • University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO
  • Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC
  • Georgetown University, Washington D.C.
  • Duke University, Durham, NC
  • Davidson College, Davidson, NC

A letter to Sunwater Institute’s Summer 2021 Class

Thank you to our Summer 2021 class of Interns! We are grateful for all the work that you have done this summer and your dedication to each of your respective programs. We hope nothing but the best in your future endeavors! Happy National Intern Day! #NationalInternDay