Job Description
Policy Research Graduate Internship
Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury
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Nashville, TN
About Our Office
The Office of the Tennessee Comptroller of the Treasury is responsible for the audit of state and local governmental entities and participates in the general financial and administrative management and oversight of state government. The Office is led by Comptroller Justin P. Wilson, a constitutional officer who is elected by the Tennessee General Assembly.
In the Comptroller’s Office, we strive to deliver on our mission to make government work better. We believe our success as an office depends on finding opportunities for employees to accomplish our office’s goals and answer challenges to make things better.
We want every member of our team to be excited to come to work every day and be challenged. Through dedicated hard work and commitment, every Comptroller’s Office employee accepts personal responsibility to accomplish our mission and uphold it.
Position
The Comptroller of the Treasury's Office of Research and Education Accountability (OREA) is committed to producing objective and accurate education research, policy analysis, and program evaluation to inform discussions and decisions in the Tennessee General Assembly. The work of OREA helps support the Tennessee General Assembly and thereby supports the broader mission of the Comptroller's Office, to make government work better. For examples of OREA's recent work, please visit our website at https://www.comptroller.tn.gov/OREA/.
OREA is seeking applicants for a Policy Research Graduate Internship. This internship will offer graduate students the opportunity to explore Tennessee's education and other state policy arenas as objective researchers. Interns will assist with research, analysis, writing, and producing policy documents under the guidance of experienced legislative research analysts. Interns will gain a unique, behind-the-scenes look at how research and policy analysis inform the democratic process in Tennessee. The internship experience will be tailored to the strengths and interests of the intern, with the aim of assisting the intern toward the completion and possible publication of an original research project.
This internship will be located in our Nashville office and run between 10 to 12 weeks during Summer 2020. While precise dates are negotiable, the internship would begin in May and extend through August. This internship pays $15 per hour, up to 20 hours per week. Interns will be employees of a third party vendor.
To qualify for consideration, an applicant should have completed at least two semesters of a master's degree program in Public Policy, Education Policy, Public Administration, or a comparable field. To perform this job successfully, the candidate should be familiar with quantitative data analysis software, such as Excel or Stata. Successful candidates will be able to express ideas and present information clearly and concisely, and have organizational skills to maintain documentation of activities.
Major responsibilities will include:
Conducting literature reviews, policy scans, and fact-checking reviews to assist larger projects
Analyzing, distilling, and synthesizing qualitative and quantitative data
Authoring briefs and memos appropriate for a general audience on issues related to current research projects or relevant policy topics
Independent work toward the completion of an original research project
To Apply:
Submit a resume, a cover letter explaining your interest in the internship, an unofficial transcript, a list of three references, and a writing sample of approximately three pages by March 30, 2020. Include contact information for a dean, professor, or administrator in your graduate program who can confirm that you are a current student in good standing.