 "Photo: Bill Archer Center")
The spring 2005 Bill Archer Fellows have settled into their internships, and for the first time in program history are living together in a four-story town house.
The spring class includes 16 scholars from participating UT System campuses. The class includes five UTD representatives: Cheng Lee, Chris Allnatt, Geoff Barry, Hamid Kadiwala and Marc Fuhrmann.
The program challenges selected students to participate in semester-long internships in government-related organizations in Washington, D.C. But the new housing accommodations have added a sense of adventure to the experience.
The new Archers live in a townhome on Capitol Hill as a part of an arrangement with Washington Intern Student Housing.
Senior business administration and economics-finance dual major Cheng Lee said communal living heightens tension at times, but it also provides an opportunity to interact with diverse people.
"Its four floors with 16 people can make for cold showers in the morning and a perpetually messy kitchen, but also provides for great company and good conversation," Lee said.
In addition to overcrowding, senior social sciences major Chris Allnatt said the close quarters diminish privacy.
"We learn to live like a family," Allnatt said. "With no privacy in a four-story house, the 16 of us live under a single roof. We call our house a 'Texas Embassy.'"
Jenifer Sarver, formerly of Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's (R-TX) office and new program director for the program, said the new housing situations were created to enable the students to have a better exchange of political ideologies and to make them well-rounded.
The new housing situation brought the students closer to each other, and also to the various government organizations in Washington.
"We're a block from the Capitol, a block from the Senate buildings, a couple from the Supreme Court, three from the Library of Congress, and three from the Union Station," Lee said. "So, we're in the middle of everything D.C."
Amidst the excitement of living in Washington, Geoff Barry, a senior government and politics major, said the Washington atmosphere sometimes frustrates him.
"Sometimes I want to become a senator, but at times I feel it is better to run away to Africa and make a library there," Barry said. "One realizes that there is too much talk and no action in politics. We want to do so much, but we also know that taking action is not in our hands."
UTD's Archers are interning at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Common Cause, the United Nations Information Center and the Middle East Institute. Past Archers have interned in the White House, Capitol and CNN.
Accepting situations as they come, the Archers have impressed Sarver.
"UTD is certainly a unique campus. Its students are particularly very bright, intelligent and hardworking, and they truly appreciate the academic component of the program," Sarver said. "Even the UTD administration is very supportive; they want to see the program expand."
Sarver added the program is expanding and has gained a reputation in Washington. She said the program could expand from three to six participating campuses by involving students from UT El Paso, UT San Antonio and UT Pan American.
