Internship Engages Student in Educational Policy, Community Organizing  

What is it like to be a Humanities Gateway Intern? We spoke with James Perkovich (History major), who is the Humanities Gateway Intern in Public Media and Civic Engagement for 2022-2023—an internship offered by HRI in partnership with Illinois Public Media.

Interview by Giovanna Gutierrez, HRI Communications and Outreach Intern

Why did Humanities Gateway internship interest you?

In the fall of 2022, I became really interested in gaining professional experience in a way that allowed me to use my brain in a way that was different from a standard minimum wage job. As a result, I began paying more attention to my email and speaking with my academic and career advisors. I eventually came across an email from HRI promoting their internships, and when I read about their community engagement opportunities, it felt like a perfect match with what I was looking for given my major and skills. As I submitted my application and went through the interview process, I learned more about the position, such as organizing conversations, which is something I do in my classrooms on a regular basis, but this time it would be in a media setting, which piqued my overall interest.

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Describe a project you’ve worked on. What have you learned from this experience?

Yeah, it has been cool. One of the things I learned from this project were the educational concerns within Champaign County and Unit 4 School District. Our movie screening was called Let the Little Light Shine, and it was about a high school in Chicago's south loop that is predominantly African American. There are plans to close it and turn it into a high school for a neighborhood school district. Through researching that movie, watching it, and getting it out to the people we wanted to come to the event, I learned about education policy. One of the main reasons we brought it to Champaign is because Champaign is going through something similar with the Unit 4 School District. There is a lot of discussion about rank schools and schools of choice, and whether or not that is an effective/fair way for people to get access to education. As a result, I learned a great deal about the Chicago and Champaign communities.

What was the city’s response to this?

I was really impressed with the community engagement. After the screening, we had a panel with the director, some actors from the film, and a local activist working on Unit 4 issues, and it was just an engaging and thought-provoking discussion. There were plenty of questions from the audience. It seemed like they really cared about these issues affecting their own communities. They wanted to learn directly from the people involved in the problem back in Chicago to see what they can do and implement here in Urbana-Champaign.

Tell us about the listening sessions you have produced— how has this experience helped you learn more about local issues?

The first listening session we held was on February 23rd in Peoria. Prior to that, I was [doing research on] a bunch of nonprofits for community members that we thought would be important to have our reporters hear from and interact with when covering material in Peoria. We wanted to get our reporters comfortable with the community issues, so we scheduled that. Our boss reported back on finding many connections between the issues in Champaign and Peoria.

How has this internship enabled you to build community collaborations?

Through this internship, I have engaged with a lot more people than I would have simply by being a student. I have contacted a lot more professors and faculty to help spread the word about our screenings, so I am more familiar with the College of Media and College of Education than I was before. I believe I have come into contact with some of the community advisors who really help Illinois Public Media to keep an ear on local issues.

What have you learned from working in the humanities? How can you apply what you have learned in the future?

Speaking with my boss and attending a couple of news meetings has given me the opportunity to discuss how we want to approach the listening sessions, [figure out] what we want to get out of them, and most importantly, [find out] what the community can get out of them. There have undoubtedly been numerous possibilities to incorporate my own perspectives into what we do at Illinois Public Media.