Two alumni named City Hall Fellows

BY B.J. ALMOND
Rice News staff

Rice alumni Ted Wieber ’09 and Lindsay Zwiener ’09 were selected from more than 500 applicants across the nation to serve as City Hall Fellows (CHF) for 2009-10. This elite public-policy fellowship program offers firsthand experience in what it takes to run a city and to design and implement effective public policy.

		TED WIEBER		LINDSAY ZWIENER

Houston and San Francisco are the host cities for the 16 fellows chosen this year. Wieber and Zwiener will spend their fellowship year working for the city of Houston beginning Aug. 3.

The fellows function as full-time city employees, not as interns, consultants or observers. They work four-and-a-half days each week as special project assistants to senior city administrators and officials; on the other half day each week, they attend a civic leadership development program to learn about the history, politics, mechanics and functions of local governance.

“I’m looking forward to an intensive year that will help me explore policymaking and public service on the municipal level,” said Wieber, who majored in history. “Unlike many jobs right out of college, this will give me the opportunity to contribute my own ideas in a setting that will value them.” He said the program’s formal leadership training will help him learn about city planning and public administration, but he also expects it to serve as a forum where fellows can trade practical insights learned on the job in different city departments.

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Zwiener, who majored in political science, policy studies and kinesiology, expects to gain hands-on policy experience at the local government level from the CHF program before she pursues an advanced degree in public policy. “In my time at Rice, I found that there is often a large communication gap between academic research and governmental policies that are implemented,” she said. “I would like to explore this issue from both sides so that I can understand how best to work toward bridging this gap.”

Houston Mayor Bill White said the fellows will have a “great opportunity to focus their energy, talents and enthusiasm on many of our most pressing issues. I expect they will find it fascinating and challenging work. I look forward to having them as our partners.”

The CHF program seeks graduates with close ties to their respective cities and a strong interest in serving their communities, and both Rice alums said their fellowship applications benefited from their years at Rice.

“The interactions I’ve had with the city of Houston, such as working with the Port of Houston Authority as a freshman in a Leadership Rice course and enjoying ‘beyond the hedges’ discounts to all of Houston’s cultural amenities, helped me make the case during the fellowship interviews that I had proactively used my time at Rice to explore all that Houston has to offer,” Wieber said.

Zwiener said she had several opportunities to work on projects for the city of Houston through Rice’s Center for Civic Engagement. “During this past year, I have been part of an interdisciplinary team analyzing Houston’s experience with Hurricane Ike. And through an internship with Rice’s Shell Center for Sustainability, I was able to work in the mayor’s Office of Environmental Programming for the summer of 2008 creating an inventory of recycling activities and tonnages for the Houston area.”

Experts predict that within the decade, more than half of government managers will retire. Yet many of the nation’s most promising young leaders are passing up government jobs for nonprofits and the private sector, said Bethany Henderson, CHF founder and executive director.

The CHF program aims to reverse this trend. Its goal is to create a generation of enlightened civic leaders who are as knowledgeable about environmental science as they are about political science, as comfortable with art as they are with policy and who are trained to favor considered action over partisan rhetoric, Henderson said.

Wieber and Zwiener are following in the footsteps of Rice alumna Tara Grigg Garlinghouse ’08, who was selected for the inaugural CHF class last year.

For more on the program, visit www.cityhallfellows.org.