Skills gained at Rider help alumni land jobs on national presidential campaigns

Annie Schneider ’16 spends her days managing groups of people dedicated to electing Hillary Clinton for president.
 She builds teams of 70-plus volunteers and leads them as they make phone calls, knock on doors and register voters. 
 It is a pretty important first job for someone not even a year out of college. And Schneider, a 2016 graduate of Rider University, credits the University and its Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics with helping her land it.
 “I am so incredibly thankful to Rider because it got me a job two weeks after graduation,” says Schneider, a field organizer for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.
 Schneider is far from the only recent Rider graduate working on a presidential campaign this season.
 Lee Clark ’15 is also working on the Clinton campaign. And a pair of 2016 grads, Hunter Morgen and Kevin Oswald, are employed by Donald Trump’s campaign. Morgen, who majored in political science at Rider, focuses on policy for the Republican campaign. (The Trump campaign did not permit him to be interviewed.)
 “These folks all graduated in the last two years, and they are all out there working to elect the next leader of the free world,” says Ben Dworkin, director of the Rebovich Institute. “I think that is very exciting for Rider. I think it shows that we, in a bipartisan way, can train people and can make them recognize the importance of campaigns, the importance of politics, the importance of public service.”  The Rebovich Institute provides students with access to and training for a wide variety of political and governmental experiences. Each spring, the Institute produces a summer internship guide listing about 70 internships pertaining to campaigns, government, issue advocacy and association management. So students can afford to take unpaid internships, the Institute awards scholarship money. It also helps with things like writing an effective resume and creating an elevator pitch. And the Institute gives students access to top politicians. “Every living governor of New Jersey has come to Rider in the last few years," Dworkin says. "Every current candidate for governor has spoken at Rider since 2014. And our students haven’t been stuck in the back row. They get up close and personal with these people. That’s what makes the Institute unique. You get to shake hands with these politicians. You get to talk to them. You get to meet them. You get to ask them your questions and bring the issues of the millennial generation to the fore.” Dworkin says when a student goes through the Institute’s program and takes advantage of the opportunities for training and exposure, “he or she is absolutely qualified to land a job on a national campaign and that’s what we’ve seen.” That is the way it worked for Schneider. As a freshman, she started interning with the New Jersey Democratic Party. As a sophomore, she interned with the New Jersey state senate. Then as a junior, she landed an internship during her semester in Washington, D.C., writing political briefings for President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice President Joseph Biden and Second Lady Jill Biden.  “Everything was a building block and every year I was able to get a better job because of the one that I had before,” she says.