Intern to make a difference — The University of Idaho Women’s Center offers several internships with the opportunity to earn credit.

Students have the opportunity to get involved with the Women’s Center and everything it does by becoming an intern.

The application process is informal — a meeting with Heather Gasser, the director of the Women’s Center, is all it takes. If students want to intern for the blog or Yin Radio, a formal application needs to be filled out.

Several intern opportunities are offered through the Women’s Center, Gasser said. Academic credit can be earned through the University of Idaho’s sociology department, but other colleges can be a part of the intern program as well, Gasser said, such as students in graphic design or the school of Journalism and Mass Media.

“If a student has a specific interest in women and gender issues, a spot can be found that works for them,” Gasser said.

The Women’s Center offers three structured internships, Gasser said. The first is for writing the Women’s Center blog, which was established more than a year ago. The editor position gives internship credit through JAMM and blog contributors can also receive credit, she said. Depending on how many credits they are receiving, contributors post about three to five times a month, she said.

“The blog is getting a lot of hits, and it seems as though it is making a real difference,” Gasser said.

The 2011-2012 Women’s Center blog editor Tanya Bingham is a graduating senior. The former editor of the blog invited her to become the current editor.

Bingham said she loves working at the Women’s Center because collaboration is encouraged.

Bingham, who considers herself a humanist and activist, said she has gained a lot  through her experience as an editor of the blog.

“Human justice is very important and inequality is very prominent in our world,” she said. “People need to try and understand culture differences and they need to be respected in their own way.”

Facilitator for the blog Lysa Salsbury, is a great person to work with, Bingham said.

“She is hands-on and very helpful with the blog, along with wonderful, eloquent, deliberate and thoughtful in her speech,” she said.

Shaina Craner, a senior and journalism major, worked for the Women’s Center during her freshman year and started writing for the blog in 2011. She said her favorite part is bringing attention to important topics and starting discussions with people on campus.

Yin Radio sparks discussion through a different platform and its internship targets students who are interested in broadcast journalism, Gasser said. The one-hour radio show runs every Saturday on KRFP and is syndicated by 10 affiliates across the country.

Yin Radio is ideal for students who want to be reporters, Gasser said. The show includes pieces that explore body image, women’s music and blogging.

The Women’s Center outreach program Body rEvolution seeks to change how women see their bodies. Body rEvolution interns are responsible for activism projects about body image as well as trying to dispel some of the myths about how men and women see the ideal body, Gasser said.

Junior Cory Zenner, student coordinator for Body rEvolution, receives two academic credits for his work as the liaison between Gasser and other Body rEvolution interns.

The group highlights Love Your Body Day in the fall and National Eating Disorders Week in the spring, as well as social activism projects and presentations to educate the student body, he said.

It is set up much like a class that meets once a week and is co-sponsored by the Counseling and Testing Center. The CTC doctoral intern helps facilitate and Zenner said he helps with discussions and the psychology and sociology behind the problems of eating disorders.

Zenner became an intern with Body rEvolution by responding to an email from the Dean of Students  Bruce Pitman after he was a New Student Orientation Leader. The email said that the Women’s Center was looking for people interested in eating disorders. He is studying nutrition and thought it would be right up his alley, he said. The whole application process was, again, very basic and informal, he said.

Zenner said his favorite part about being an intern is the social activism, generating awareness around campus about body image and eating disorder issues.

“They are so overlooked and people don’t want to talk about it, but it is important that they do because it affects everyone,” he said.

Emily Aizawa can be reached at [email protected]

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Emily Aizawa News reporter Freshman in public relations Can be reached at [email protected]

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