Catching Up With Our Alumni – Tori Newman Campbell

Colleges and Universities across the country, Daemen included, are in the midst of recruitment season.  Students are exploring what schools have to offer and considering what they want to study when they enroll.  One of the most frequent questions asked of faculty during recruitment events is, “what can I do with this degree?”  While there is no clear, singular career path our graduates follow, the versatility of this degree is one of its strengths.  A degree in History and/or Political Science prepares students for a variety of careers upon graduation.  We have graduates that have gone on to have successful careers in law, business, education, public service, community development, nonprofit organization, and government, just to name a few.  These graduates have taken their course content knowledge along with the transferable skills they developed in the major and had incredibly successful careers. 

That’s the great thing about these disciplines: they provide a wealth of knowledge of history and/or political science content, but they also equip students with critical thinking skills, the ability to develop and carry out a research project, clear verbal and written communication skills, and the ability to synthesize and meaningfully analyze information.  Our alumni regularly put these skills to use in their chosen career paths.  So, to help answer the questions of “what can I do with a degree in History?” or “what can I do with a degree in Political Science?” we want to highlight some of the interesting and important work our alumni have been up to since graduating. 

Tori Newman Campbell '19, Legislative Coordinator for New York 1199SEIU, a healthcare union

Our inaugural alumna is Tori Newman Campbell, class of 2019.  Tori was a Political Science major who minored in Political Communication and Literature and Composition.  She currently works as the Legislative Coordinator for New York 1199SEIU, a healthcare union.  Below is a discussion I recently had with Tori, highlighting what she has been up to since graduating. 

How have you put your degree to use since graduating?

Every job I have held since graduation was related to my degree. My first job was in an Assembly office in Brooklyn. Although I was there a short time, my background in political science was integral in understanding how the Assembly worked, how laws were written and passed and how the Assemblymember participated in the political process. My next job was at a lobby firm, Bolton St. John’s, and although I was no longer working in an elected office, lobbyists have an enormous effect on the political process as well. Minoring in political communication really helped me at the firm. We often pushed out stories and interacted with the media on behalf of clients and their political goals. Currently, I am at 1199SEIU and as the legislative coordinator, I help the union push for our legislative goals such as increasing the Medicaid reimbursement rate. Much like my first two jobs, my degree has aided me in understanding how we can push for these goals and participate in the political process. Also, my coursework that covered the differences between the local, state, and federal levels of governments has been very helpful since starting at 1199SEIU, because unlike my past two positions, we work with legislators at every level of government. That understanding of how each level works and what each level can do has been very useful when we are setting priorities by office.

What do you like most about your job?

My job allows me the ability to do what I love, while making a difference. Working as 1199SEIU’s legislative coordinator, I get to work with elected officials who believe in our goals of pushing for more resources for our hospitals, nursing homes, and other facilities and getting better pay for our members who are healthcare heroes. I love politics and getting to go to Albany to be a part of the political process. Getting to do this while also changing the lives of the healthcare workers we represent is amazing and I don’t know if I would ever be able to get that balance somewhere else.

Do you have a favorite memory from your time at Daemen that you'd like to share?

I have so many great memories from Daemen, from making lifelong friends to having professors who helped push me to be the best I could be both academically and professionally. I think some of my favorite memories were being on student government. I was always a part of student government before I got to Daemen, but being in college was a bit different and I never thought I would join again. My senior year I took a leap and ran for Secretary, and I won! That year, as a student government body, we brought the stories and concerns of students of color on campus to administration. We made sure our voices were heard and that will always be one of my core memories at Daemen.

Is there anything else you would like to share with our current students and fellow alumni?

I’ll close by just saying that Daemen is a great school and I don’t know if I would be where I am without the experiences and push from my professors I got during my time there.

Our department is incredibly thankful to Tori for taking the time to share her experiences with us and we hope you enjoyed learning a bit about what she has been up to, since graduating just four years ago!  If you would like to share your post-graduation experiences with the department, please reach out to the Department Chair, Dr. Jay Wendland at jwendlan@daemen.edu or drop your contact information in the comment section below.  

Guest Blogger: Brianna Zichettella

The Final Frontier: 

Political Honesty and the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness

Great Divide Ranch, home of the non-partisan Project Vote Smart where Brianna
completed a 10-week internship in Summer 2016. 

     Project Vote Smart calls itself the most important organization you have never heard of. And in some   ways, that is true. It was founded in 1992 and housed at Oregon State University. Seven years later, the program moved out to the Great Divide Ranch in southwestern Montana. Its mission statement is to collect and disseminate information on those holding and running for political offices in America. This research covers all levels of government from local to federal and stretches across several different types of information. In an effort to create comprehensive information about America’s electoral process, Vote Smart brings interns and paid staff to Montana. They make up the workforce of several departments ranging from candidate biographies to campaign finance information. And, as promised by Vote Smart’s slogan, very few people have heard of it. I experienced this first hand when I found myself constantly explaining to family and friends exactly what I was doing on the other side of the country.

Moose Lake, at the edge of the Great Divide Ranch

During ten weeks between May and August, I was one of fifty interns living and working at Vote Smart’s Montana headquarters. Having come from a bucolic hometown and attending college in suburban Amherst, spending the summer at the near-wilderness location was unlike anything I had ever done before. The ranch itself is situated at the edge of the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness at an elevation of 6000 feet. The closest town, Philipsburg, is a forty-five minute drive, and the closest airport is about two hours to the east. However, the ranch’s isolated location does not mean that the interns are lacking in things to do. Vote Smart’s property touches the edge of Moose Lake, and the organization owns a dock and several boats. Additionally, several trailheads can be found down the road from the ranch, and most can be completed in an afternoon. A particularly memorable trail – dubbed Huff Puff by a few decades of Vote Smart interns - switchbacks up an Anaconda-Pintler foothill. The aptly-named trail ends about 1000 feet higher than the ranch and features an amazing view of the Pintler Mountain Range. 

Trailways surrounding the Project Vote Smart Camp

But my time in Montana was spent doing more than hiking and spending time on the lake. Over the course of ten weeks, each of Vote Smart’s interns spends 40 hours per week contributing to the organization’s extensive research. During my internship, I was assigned to Vote Smart’s Political Courage Test department. To attempt to provide the public with information about political candidates, the organization sends out Political Courage questionnaires to everyone running for office. This test poses fifteen yes-or-no questions across various policy areas and gives politicians the opportunity to elaborate on their responses. It is the department’s responsibility to send out these letters and post candidate responses on the Vote Smart website. Unfortunately, a very small number of candidates respond to the surveys, and those that do often return only partially completed tests. Because of this, my main obligation in the department was to research candidate websites and speeches to extrapolate their answers to the questions.

Brianna, far left, and fellow interns enjoying the outdoor activities. Interns work on a variety of
projects, collecting information that assists voters with reliable, non-partisan information. 

The work was engaging, if repetitive. Throughout the ten weeks I researched congressional candidates across the country. Some had professionally designed websites with comprehensive issue positions and governance plans. Others had typed a few sentences into WordPress and called it a day. However, the common thread linking candidates from Alabama to Wyoming was that this information is not well publicized. It usually is not too difficult to find, but the process of finding the most relevant information can take a while. The average American often does not have the time or inclination to conduct comprehensive research on all of a candidate’s positions. That is the reason Vote Smart exists. The research done by interns and staff is aggregated on Vote Smart’s website; one place with everything a voter would need to make an informed decision. Every candidate has a page that lists biographical information, public statements, voting records, submitted or extrapolated PCT answers, special interest support, and other relevant information. Considering the controversy and polarization of this election cycle, this kind of data is more important than ever. As said by Thomas Jefferson, a well-informed electorate is a prerequisite for democracy. In 2016, it seems that voters will need all the resources at their disposal to parse through rampant misinformation about their candidates and electoral process. In my opinion, a resource like Vote Smart would be invaluable.

The compound where Project Vote Smart staff and interns engage
in voter education. 

This summer was an extremely rewarding experience, and I am glad to have had the opportunity to contribute to increasing political clarity in America. However, I could not have worked through the ins and outs of completing a successful internship by myself. I would like to thank Dr. Lisa Parshall and the History and Political Science Department for all the help and support I received during the application process and throughout the summer. I would also like to thank the staff and interns at Vote Smart. It was great to work with such a wonderful group of people. Thank you for making my ten weeks a truly amazing experience; it was absolutely one of the best summers of my life. 

The author, Brianna Zichettella is majoring in Political Science
with a minor in  Political Communications.