interns. – Sandy Rosenberg

The ones who did

June 5, 2019 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

I graduated from City College in 1968, a tumultuous time for Baltimore City and the nation.

Last Saturday, I attended City’s commencement, also a turbulent time.

I went for two reasons.

I’ve watched one of the graduates, Emma Conn, grow up. I’m close friends with her parents, David and Amanda.

I also wanted to share in the accomplishment and excitement of the occasion for the students and their families, for whom this graduation is a very big step forward in their lives. Virtually the entire class is headed on to a community or undergraduate college.

One of the class members put the moment in perspective.

She spoke of the 34 kids in her head start class. The majority are dead or in prison. Others have dropped out or failed a grade. She and one other walked across the stage Saturday. “Today isn’t a day to focus on the ones who didn’t make it, but instead to celebrate the ones who did,” she said.

Two days later, I spoke to nearly 100 public service interns – college and graduate students who will be working for the government or a non-profit this summer.

I read to them from that speech.

“These are problems we must address,” I told them. “You’re starting down the road where you can make a difference in people’s lives.”

High Tech Interns

February 8, 2018 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2018 Legislative Diary | No Comments

Internships give people a big leg up in the profession they want to pursue as a career.

However, students with academic debt can’t afford unpaid internships.

Four years ago, UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski proposed that the State of Maryland pay half the cost of internships with high tech start-ups.

I introduced a bill, and it passed. But it was not funded.

Then Amazon made known its intent to open HQ2 – its second headquarters.

I suggested to the Hogan Administration that funding these internships would send a signal that Maryland was building a pipeline of highly qualified high tech employees.

Governor Hogan put $340,000 in this year’s budget.

House Bill 527 would extend the high tech intern program to state and local governments. It would also remove the provision in the existing law that limits the internships to start ups with less than 150 employees.

Amazon does not meet that definition.

One of the students who testified in support of the bill today said that he is a Walter Sondheim Scholar.

Walter was Baltimore’s foremost public citizen.

When I enacted legislation to fund internships in public service or the non-profit sector, I named it in Walter’s memory.

Every summer, at the start of their program, I speak to those interns about public service.

This fall, I hope to speak to the first group of high tech interns.

I’ll tell them that Sergey Brin, founder of Google, went to public school and college in Maryland – after his family emigrated here from the Soviet Union.

New Generations of Tech Interns and Voters

December 16, 2017 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2017 Legislative Diary | No Comments

I’ll be working with Governor Hogan on behalf of one of his work force development initiatives next year.

The governor announced this week that he will “fund the Maryland Technology Internship Program [MTIP] for the first time in state history, which provides matching funds to companies for internship stipends.”

I introduced the bill that created MTIP in 2014. It authorizes a state payment for college students interning with a high tech company.

This fall, I met with the Governor’s staff to lobby for funding for the program as part of the incentive package presented to Amazon on behalf of Port Covington as a site for the company’s new headquarters.

This won’t be the first time that I’ve worked with a Republican administration on legislation. I introduced the William Donald Schaefer Scholarship, which provides a one-year college scholarship in return for a one-year commitment to a public service job.

Governor Ehrlich funded the program from the outset. Future State Senator Bill Ferguson was one of the recipients.

– – –

“We’ve lost the South for a generation.”

President Johnson said that after signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

LBJ knew how to count votes, but in this instance he was wrong.

The Solid South for the Democrats did become Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy and the transformation of the South into a solid bloc of Republican states.

But it took 53 years, from July 2, 1964, until this past Tuesday, more than a generation, for a Democrat to win the Senate election in Alabama.

It also took the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for African-Americans to be able to register to vote in the South.