UT-DC

Texas students get an inside-the-beltway Washington education through the Archer Fellows program.

Tucked away on a historic tree-lined street a few blocks behind the Supreme Court is a pair of four-story brownstones that house the students in one of The University of Texas’ unique and most successful experiments in education.

Each morning, up to 32 UT System undergraduates wake up in the nation’s capital. They jump on the Metro and head to full-time internships at places like the Smithsonian, the Commerce Department, the Gates Foundation, the Canadian Embassy, Congress, CNN, and the White House.

After a full workday, they head to an office building on Pennsylvania Avenue—caddy-corner from the World Bank and a few blocks from the West Wing. There they continue their education with evening courses in public policy and persuasion taught by UT professors.

These students are Archer Fellows, members of a decade-old competitive undergraduate program that brings UT students to Washington, D.C., for an innovative full-time internship and academic program.

“Texas does a good job through the LBJ School of Public Affairs of preparing leaders for Texas and beyond that, the United States,” the center’s founder, former U.S. congressman Bill Archer, says. “But I think what the Archer Fellowship does is prepare leaders for the world.”

Archer, BBA ’50, LLB ’51, Life Member and Distinguished Alumnus, founded the center as a follow-on to a program he ran throughout his 30-year congressional career. It brought students from his home district to D.C. during spring break to experience government up close. He launched that program in reaction to what he saw as young people’s growing discontent with and distrust of government after the Vietnam War. He wanted to expose them to the public-policy process and get them to engage their government and civil society rather than simply stand back in protest.

“Austin is a marvelous city,” Archer says. “But they get perspectives in Washington that they could never experience in Austin.” It’s that “experiential education” that makes the Archer Fellowship unique among D.C. internship programs, most of which provide internships without the academic component. The center combines what director Katie Romano, BS ’03, Life Member, refers to as the “interconnected tenets of scholarship, internship, and fellowship.”

The fellowship started with just UT-Austin students and has since expanded to encompass the UT System, with students from all nine academic campuses now participating. In 2010, the Center launched its first graduate program, and plans for a program with UT’s medical schools are in the works.

The fellowship has evolved in other ways, including the fellow housing. Initially, they lived in an extended-stay hotel in Virginia—now they live together on Capitol Hill. The proximity to the nerve center of American politics stimulates their intellect and imagination, the students say, and living with one another is one of the most eye-opening and instructional elements of the program.

“Living under one roof was the fellowship’s most transformative aspect,” says spring 2005 fellow Alex Marks, BA, BS ’06. “The opportunity to hear everyone’s day-to-day successes or challenges while cooking dinner or doing homework not only served as an education unto itself, but also forged lifelong friendships.”

Amber Ahmed, a fall 2007 fellow, adds: “The most important lesson of my Archer semester was: when in doubt, say ‘yes.’” Ahmed is jointly pursuing a master’s in communication and a law degree at UT-Austin.

“There are too many opportunities in life to be scared to jump in and give new ideas or activities a try,” she says. “I think that being an Archer fellow prepared me to juggle the workload and commitment that comes with embracing opportunity.”

It’s that juggling act that often teaches fellows the most. For many, it is the first time balancing a full-time job with a full academic course load. For some, it’s the first time away from home. Other students experienced their first plane flight when they traveled to D.C. For nearly all, it is a life-changing experience that focuses their academic or professional path.

Gina Garcia, BA ’01, BJ ’01, who received an Emmy nomination for her work as a producer on the Today show and was in the first Archer Center class, credits her success to the fellowship. “Simply put, I would not be where I am professionally without the Archer Fellowship,” Garcia says. “The opportunity to intern at NBC as an undergraduate did more for me professionally than any course I could have taken in Austin.”

After his fellowship, fall 2007 fellow Robert Garcia said he knew law school was the right path for him. “I saw how the D.C. attorneys were able to combine political and legal skills to effectively advocate for policy improvements,” says Garcia, now in his second year at Stanford Law.

Many fellows go on to law school, medical school, or to pursue a PhD. Some feel the pull of public service immediately, with more than two dozen having gone on from the fellowship to participate in Teach for America, Americorps, or the Peace Corps. From an academic perspective, the Fellowship has produced a litany of high honors for the UT System: three Fulbright Scholars, two students who have received both Truman and Marshall Scholarships, and graduate school acceptances at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and the London School of Economics.

“No matter how they spend their time in Washington, each and every one of our fellows has one thing in common: they represent the best and brightest of what the UT System has to offer,” says Bill Shute, BA ’84, Life Member and the UT System’s vice chancellor of federal relations.

The Archer Center has its own take on the campus motto: “What Starts Here Changes the World.” For the Center, it’s “Where Texas Meets the World.”

That’s true of students like fall 2002 fellow Heidi Boutros, BA ’04, who helped prosecute war crimes and genocide within the UN and rescue slaves in India. It’s true of Jeremy Goldberg, BA ’03, spring 2002 fellow, who launched a Ugandan aid organization that grew into the Global Youth Partnership for Africa. And it’s also true of Andrew Chen, BA ’02, Life Member, spring 2001 Fellow, who worked in rural education development as a Fulbright Scholar in China before heading to Harvard Law.

That’s just the kind of impact Archer hoped to have when he launched the program 10 years ago. “I have a lot more confidence in our future when I see the capabilities of these students,” Archer says. “I know they will be providing leadership for our world.”

Jenifer Sarver, BJ ’99, BS ’99, Life Member, was the second director of the Archer Center. She now works as chief of staff to Karen Hughes at Burson-Marsteller.