This essay was produced by the Clinton Foundation and written by Clinton School alum Mara D’Amico. For more essays on public service, click here.
As millions around the world can attest, the legacy of President Clinton has been both far-reaching and profound. Like many millennials, I came to understand what leadership through public service looked like while President Clinton was in office, and was fortunate to be a child during a period of relative peace and prosperity while he was President. Although I couldn’t fully understand at the time, he was crafting policy and creating programs that would shape the course of my life. As a young person who served two terms as an AmeriCorps member, graduated from the Clinton School of Public Service, and was awarded a fellowship in Secretary Clinton’s name to continue her work supporting women’s rights around the globe, I can say with certainty that my life would be completely different without the influence of President Clinton. My classmates from the Clinton School and I are now part of his ever-growing legacy.
In 2011, I was serving as an AmeriCorps Public Ally in Miami, and was looking for a graduate program that would embody the philosophy of public service that I had come to value. During a conversation about graduate programs, a close friend suggested I look into the Clinton School, as it seemed to be a good fit for me. I wanted a program that was firmly grounded in community-based work. That paired academic rigor with real-world application. That cultivated a diverse and tight-knit group of classmates with a wide range of public service interest areas and proven leadership. That gave students the opportunity to do international fieldwork. That didn’t burden graduates with excessive levels of student loan debt. That gave access to some of the best thought leaders and public servants in the world. And that didn’t shy away from working to address the toughest social issues facing our world today. I found all of those things and more at the Clinton School of Public Service. Although it was hard to say goodbye to Miami, Florida, I knew that the Clinton School was the right fit for me.
The mission of the Clinton School is “to educate and prepare professionals in public service who understand, engage and transform complex social, cultural, 13 economic and political systems to ensure equity, challenge oppression and effect positive social change.” At the Clinton School, we learn theory and concepts in the classroom—ranging from program planning and evaluation to research methods to ethics of public service—and apply that knowledge through three major field service projects. The first is a team public service project called Practicum, in which students work to address a need in the state of Arkansas. The second is the International Public Service Project, in which students spend a minimum of ten weeks abroad working to solve problems or build the capacity of an organization or community. Finally, students complete a culminating Capstone project in their second year of the program, which can be completed anywhere in the world, from Little Rock to Lagos to Lima. For me, this was the main draw of the program—to be able to directly apply the concepts that I learned in the classroom.
I completed my Practicum project with Lewis-Burnett Employment Finders in Little Rock, working with a team of classmates to survey the Little Rock service community about their capacity to meet the needs of formerly incarcerated individuals, create a service directory specifically for that population, and write a white paper of analysis and recommendations for how the service community could be better organized to meet the needs of those individuals. For my International project, I travelled to Ometepe Island in Nicaragua, where I worked with a health clinic to create a curriculum of educational and support groups to start discussions in the communities there about topics related to violence against women. For my Capstone project, I worked with the Women’s Foundation of Arkansas to research and author a strategic plan for its Policy and Research Committee so it could be better positioned to create research and effect change for women and girls in Arkansas. These field service experiences gave me a more intimate look at the issues impacting the lives of people across the state of Arkansas and around the world. I gained new skills, learned a great deal, and made real contributions to the organizations where I worked. All of these experiences taught me skills and knowledge that I continue to apply on a regular basis.
Students at the Clinton School have numerous opportunities to be involved in a variety of academic and leadership pursuits. We can listen to countless speakers at the renowned public program series, learning from leaders like Al Gore, Buzz Aldrin and Rachel Maddow. Because the Clinton School is located on the grounds of the Clinton Presidential Center, we also have the chance to become engaged in the vibrant community that Little Rock offers. I enjoyed taking full advantage of my time there, getting to know the Natural State through the Hope Watermelon Festival, trips with classmates to the Buffalo River and Pinnacle Mountain, and finding the best pie from Helena to Hot Springs, and from Eureka Springs to El Dorado. I also found some truly incredible friends in my classmates. I learned more than I could have imagined from classmates who were working to address climate change through training women to install solar panels, others who were focused on improving health through walkability, and still more who worked with women seeking refuge from the conflict in Syria. At the Clinton School, you are surrounded by true public servants who are passionate about and committed to cultivating positive social change. I look forward to seeing the collective impact my classmates will have over the course of our lives.
Upon graduation from the Clinton School in May 2014, I was named the Hillary Rodham Clinton Communications Fellow for the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security in Washington, D.C. My time and experiences at the Clinton School directly prepared me for the work I’m doing now, and I am thrilled to have the chance to build upon the legacy started by Secretary Clinton in working for the world to see women’s rights as human rights, once and for all. My life has been shaped by the work and legacy of President Clinton. I have directly benefitted from the policies and programs he has shaped and implemented, which are represented at the Center in the Library, the Archives, and at the School, and it is my responsibility to pay that forward. I have committed to a life of public service—a life of working to find community-based 15 solutions to pervasive social problems, of fostering inclusivity and thoughtfulness, and of operating at the intersection of theory and practice. I look forward to the bridges I will continue to build through the legacy of President Clinton.
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