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It was a cold clear winter morning in January 1965 when a young J. Michael McGinnis, majoring in Political Theory, strode confidently and purposefully across the U.C. Berkeley campus to his 8am biochemistry lecture. Later that afternoon (for reasons undocumented) he would lunch with a legislative aide from Senator Kuchel's (D-California) office.
"We have a number of college students like yourself interning at the Senator's office in Washington every summer," the legislative aide told J. Michael. "In fact, we are flooded with internship applications during the spring and the problem is the Senator's Staff just doesn't have the time to carefully review all of the applicants. Even if we had the time, the office has no formal selection process. As a consequence, we unfortunately end up selecting the interns arbitrarily."
Spurred on by the words of the Senator's staff person, J. Michael thought of his fellow Cal students who desired to work in Washington during the summer. He realized that Berkeley students, being 3000 miles away from the nation's capital, were at a distinct disadvantage, and he had only a vague notion of how to pursue such internships.
J. Michael's mind clicked and whirred. He recognized two needs. First it was clear that Cal students needed some sort of service to aid them in finding and obtaining internship positions in Washington. Second, it was equally clear that the offices and employees in Washington needed a screening and endorsing service to aid them in the selection of quality student interns. It was from these two needs that the seeds were sown for the Cal in the Capital program.
The Cal in the Capital program, as it's founder hoped in 1965, was to be a "brokerage service" for both Berkeley students and Washington employers. With the program, J. Michael sought to create a service that would, first, screen out and select students qualified for internships in Washington, thus relieving the employers from the burden of selection; and, second, guide those selected students through the internship application process, while preparing them for life and work in the nation's capital.
In an interview some twenty years later, J. Michael McGinnis (now Senior Vice President and Director, Health Group, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) continues to stress the dual nature of the Cal in the Capital program. "The Cal in the Capital Program is meant to serve both the student and the employer. With the program's selection and endorsement process, the employers know they are getting the best qualified student interns. With the help of the program, Cal students overcome a number of key obstacles and are able to compete for Washington internships on an equal level with students from the East coast schools."
Armed with these two ideas, J. Michael set out in 1965 to establish the Cal in the Capital program. His immediate goals were to find students interested in working in Washington for the summer; formulate an application and selection process; and establish internship contacts in the nation's capital. His long range goal was to establish "institutional stability" in Cal in the Capital such that the program could continue year after year, as a student-run program, "without a great deal of difficulty."
Initially, J. Michael approached the University administration, the Alumni Association, and the A.S.U.C. about the program. He found all three groups eager to offer their support and to help start the program. The University and Alumni Association agreed to jointly fund the program financially; on top of which the Alumni Association also offered both office space and administrative assistance to the new program. J. Michael attributes this early support from the University to their concern over the image developing during the 1960's of Berkeley students. With the Free Speech Movement, student activism, and general social turbulence of the time, Berkeley students were being portrayed as "disruptive radicals and anarchists." J. Michael suggests that the University and the Alumni Association hoped to mitigate this negative portrayal by supporting a program, which would send Cal Students to intern in the nation's capital.
With this support, J. Michael proceeded in the fall of 1965, to market his new program to the students. After arriving at what he calls a "hokey, but memorable name" for the "Cal in the Capital" program, he turned to campus flyers, advertisements in the Daily Cal, and faculty help to publicize the program. Next, J. Michael set down a rigorous selection process involving both written student applications and faculty-student interviews. As a result of his efforts, by late 1965, the program selected 35 of the best qualified students to work in Washington D.C.
J. Michael now turned his attention to finding internships for the selected students. He first established a pool of potential internships by matching student interests with the internships in the appropriate Federal agencies; pairing students with internships in the offices of their district representatives and state senators; and coupling financially needy students with paid internship positions. J. Michael then introduced the Cal in the Capital program to a variety of other Washington employers, offices, and agencies.
By the spring of 1966, J. Michael, having never been to the East coast, was ready to make the first Cal in the Capital internship recruitment trip to Washington D.C. A number of coincidental factors and "Cal connections" aided J. Michael in his pursuit of the internships. On the plane flight to Washington, J. Michael ran into John Gardener, then Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, who had been honored to night before in Berkeley as the "Cal Alumnus of the Year." After J. Michael presented and discussed the program with him, the Secretary gave his full support and offered six paid internships to the program. In Washington, J. Michael was able to meet with a number of other federal officials associated with the University. Glen T. Seaborg, a nobel prize winning professor from Berkeley and then Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, also offered a number internship positions to Cal students. Charles Clapp, one of the foremost experts on the legislative process and a PhD from Berkeley, allowed J. Michael to use his Capitol Hill Office to contact and meet with legislative aides from various Congressional Offices.
After returning from Washington, J. Michael continued to correspond with Cal in the Capital's contacts. As a result, by mid-May, most of the internships for the first summer if the program in 1966 were "nailed down."
Ironically, after spending over a year of time and effort in establishing the Cal in the Capital program, J. Michael, having been accepted to medical school for the coming fall, decided not to work and intern in Washington D.C. himself that summer. Instead, he selected Ron Rosen, who had just graduated from Berkeley that spring, and Art (call me "Bart") Shartsis, who would return to Berkeley for another year in the fall, to run the Cal in the Capital program during its first summer in Washington. J. Michael hoped to bring a certain amount of continuity and consistency to the program with his selection of (B)Art, who would take over and lead the program in its second year when he returned to Cal in the fall of 1966.
J. Michael continues to stress the need for continuity and consistency in the Cal in the Capital program. He shares, "Because the program is student-run, there is a certain amount of variability and instability in the program as its leadership changes hands from year to year. Yet the success of the Cal in the Capital program relies on the program's ability to serve both Washington employers and Cal students consistently year after year. Washington employers and offices have come to rely on the program to provide them with quality student interns every summer. Cal students rely on Cal in the Capital's contacts, which have developed over the years, as well as the program's reputation, to get them rewarding and valuable internship positions in Washington for the summer. In the end, if Cal in the Capital is to advance and progress, the program's directors must ensure that there is both quality and consistency in the services they provide year after year--thus protecting the reputation of the Cal in the Capital program in both Berkeley and Washington."
