GU Politics announces fall fellows to celebrate its fifth anniversary

The Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service announced a new class of GU Politics fellows for the upcoming fall semester on their website Wednesday morning. The cohort, made up of six experts from across the political landscape, arrives in celebration of GU Politics’ fifth anniversary.

Former Rep. Mia Love (R-UT) and Kevin Hassett, former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in the Trump administration, are two high profile names included in this year’s class. The list also features campaign and media veterans, such as Faiz Shakir (LAW ’06), manager of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, Lis Smith, senior communications advisor for Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign, Errin Haines, editor at large of the nonprofit policy-focused publication The 19th, and CNN commentator Mary Katharine Ham.

The fellows program, which has introduced a new class every semester since GU Politics’ launch in 2015, allows students to build relationships with professionals working in government, the media, and other political organizations. As part of the program, each fellow is assigned a student strategy team to guide in research and political outreach over the course of the semester.

Manager of the fellows program Paula Pecorella voiced her excitement regarding the new class. “We took special care in curating this cohort who we know will give students a unique insight into the campaign trail, the newsroom, Congress, and the White House,” she said.

Like the rest of GU Politics’ operations, the fellows program, which begins in September,  will be conducted virtually to ensure participant safety during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. This shift is the latest example of GU Politics’ migration to an online environment—one which began following campus’ closing in March and continued in the institute’s “Virtual Summer 2020” event programming series on Facebook Live.

The institute, in addition to revealing the fellows’ identities, also announced a fifth-anniversary virtual open house with the fellows and Executive Director Mo Elleithee scheduled for September 10. More fifth-anniversary activities are expected to be announced throughout the semester.

Shakir expressed enthusiasm for the program on Twitter following the announcement. “This kind of program had a big impact on me when I was in college, and I’d love to try to do the same for the next generation,” he wrote. “Preparing to be the best virtual instructor I can be.”