Internship Description
Matt Elmore and Ian Sukienik, ‘20BUS, interned with Columbia Law School's Center for Public Research and Leadership (CPRL), an interdisciplinary graduate program that consults for public- and social-sector organizations undertaking and supporting transformational change in K–12 education. Matt collaborated with the State Department of Education to guide districts on the development and implementation of school integration pilot programs for the 2019-2020 school year. He assisted in the content creation and facilitation of training sessions and check-in calls for a professional learning community of 20 State school districts. Matt and Ian also both worked with a Midwestern nonprofit place-based fund (NDA signed) to assess the impact of its grant portfolio and overarching school support strategy. Building on key interviews with leading stakeholders at regional and national levels, he helped develop a suite of tools to enhance the fund’s matching and progress tracking processes of the partnerships between school improvement organizations and the fund’s portfolio of schools. Ian also wrote a case study capturing the progress and achievements of a personalized learning nonprofit organization that received a grant from a New York foundation led by a CBS alum. The case study illustrated program successes and areas for future improvement and provided guidance on how the grantor can deepen their impact with future partners. He conducted interviews with the CEO and other top-level leaders.
I worked on two projects during the duration of my internship, both of which aligned to CPRL’s mission of providing consulting expertise towards promoting transformational change in K-12 education.
One of my projects consisted of collaborating with a State Department of Education to guide districts on the development and implementation of school integration pilot programs for the 2019-2020 school year. Chief responsibilities were centered around the content creation and facilitation of training sessions and check-in calls for a professional learning community consisting of 20 State school districts.
My second project involved working with a Midwestern nonprofit place-based fund to assess the impact of its grant portfolio and overarching school support strategy. By building off key interviews with leading stakeholders at regional and national levels, my team and I were able to develop a suite of tools to enhance the fund’s matching and progress tracking processes of the partnerships between school improvement organizations and the fund’s portfolio of schools.
The MBA program at Columbia Business School has aided the development of a holistic skill set as it relates to not only proficiency with qualitative and quantitative analysis, but also comfort in client interactions.
The bottom line perspective driven home by several core MBA courses helped me parse through the details in order to identify the primary objectives of our work and develop a plan of action for executing upon key deliverables and milestones.
The primary challenge centered around exercising patience and open-mindedness when working with people from diverse backgrounds. I had to improve my perspective-taking skills in order to see how others approached problems, and subsequently identify ways to bridge differentiated skillsets in order to achieve our unified goals on each project.
My internship with CPRL was an incredibly rewarding experience, as it allowed me to deliver hands-on impact on improving the educational environment and potential outcomes for students within the U.S. K-12 public school system. Not only did the internship call upon my previous experience within public education and array of hard and soft skills developed through my work as a management consultant and MBA student, but the overall experience allowed me the opportunity to interact with influential figures within the education space – which I hope to leverage in my post-graduation career planning.