About the Program
2003 Application Information

About the Program
The purpose of the JIEE/SAMAB summer intern program is to provide real-world experience for students interested in environmental decision making. The ten-week program, which began in 1997, brings undergraduate and graduate students to the East Tennessee area, where they work with and at various agencies and organizations involved in environmental decision making. Host/mentor organizations have included:

• Alcoa
• Bechtel Jacobs Company
• Chattanooga-Hamilton County Planning Agency
• City of Knoxville
• City of Oak Ridge
• Great Smoky Mountains National Park
• Ijams Nature Center
• Knox County Department of Solid Waste
• Knox County Parks and Greenways
• Knoxville/Knox County Metropolitan Planning Commission
• Lockheed Martin Energy Systems
• Molten Metal Technology
• National Center for Environmental Decision-making Research
• National Park Service, Chattanooga Field Office
• National Parks Conservation Association
• Nine Counties, One Vision
• Oak Ridge National Environmental Research Park
• Tennessee Clean Water Network
• Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation
• Tennessee River Gorge Trust
• Tennessee Valley Authority
• Town of Farragut

• Ball State University
• California State University
• Carnegie Mellon University
• Colorado State University
• Cornell University
• Dalhousie University
• Duquesne University
• Duke University
• Eastern Illinois University
• Hamilton College
• Indiana University
• Johns Hopkins University
• McGill University, Montreal
• McMaster University
• Miami University, Ohio
• Monmouth College (IL)
• North Carolina State University
• Ohio Northern University
• Penn State
• Pomona College
• Purdue University
• Sarah Lawrence College
• Syracuse University
• St. Olaf College
• Tufts University
• University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
• University of Arizona
• University of California, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara
• University of Colorado, Boulder
• University of Florida
• University of Georgia
• University of Kansas
• University of Maryland
• University of Massachusetts
• University of Michigan
• University of New Orleans
• University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• University of Pennsylvania
• University of Tennessee
• University of Texas, Austin
• University of Virginia, Charlottesville
• Vermont Law School
• Virginia Tech
• Yale University

JIEE/SAMAB interns are "adopted" as staff of their mentoring organizations for ten weeks. In this capacity, interns may assume day-to-day operational activities of the organization, e.g., data collection, public interaction, monitoring and assessment, etc. They may also conduct a discrete project for their host organization. Here is a sampling of interns' projects (1999-2001):

• Conducted a review of the public involvement program of the environmental contractor overseeing environmental cleanup activities at the Oak Ridge Reservation
• Surveyed and documented historic properties of the Elkmont area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park for potential listing in the National Register of Historic Places
• Built an annotated guide to sustainability information and education resources for the use of a nature and environmental education center
• Investigated the opportunities for and economic feasibility of local "closed loop" recycling
• Carried out GIS work and assisted with public meetings for the planning and development of a new city greenway
• Conducted an internal survey of the implementation and perception of a corporation's environmental policy and guidance, and presented findings to the corporation's executives
• Updated the resource management plan of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park
• Developed an implementation plan for addressing Federal environmental justice mandates
• Evaluated a community's land use ordinances, researched ordinances of other cities, and recommended ordinances to achieve a community's growth management vision

2003 Application Information
The Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere (SAMAB) Foundation and the Joint Institute for Energy and Environment are sponsoring a ten-week summer internship program to run from June 2 through August 8, 2003. The program is open to advanced undergraduate and graduate students in public policy and administration, environmental science, planning, natural resource management, business, decision research, and related fields. Applicants must be a citizen of the United States or Canada; or he or she must be currently enrolled as a full-time undergraduate or graduate student at a U.S. or Canadian institution of higher education.

Selected students will be placed with environmental decision makers around the Southern Appalachian region. Host organizations/mentors will include federal, state, and municipal governments; small and large businesses; and non-governmental organizations. Interns will develop individualized projects with their host organization around one or more environmental-decision issues, observing and studying the decision-making process and its context. The interns will gather periodically for seminars on environmental research and decision making, rotating so that each mentor/host organization leads one presentation reflecting their perspective on decision making.

Interns will be paid a stipend and be provided a work place, work experience, and mentoring by the organization in which they are placed. They will be responsible for their own housing and board (SAMAB/JIEE and the host organizations will assist in locating the appropriate housing, which may include university housing).

Applicants should send a short resume, one-page statement of career interests and goals, and a copy of undergraduate and graduate transcripts by March 3 to Susan Schexnayder, SAMAB/JIEE, 314 Conference Center Building, Knoxville, TN 37996-4138. We will match the interests of the intern and the host organization as closely as possible, and expect to notify those interns selected by April 1.

For further information contact Ms. Susan Schexnayder or Dr. Robert Turner. JIEE and SAMAB are administered through the University of Tennessee, an EO/AA employer dedicated to workplace diversity.

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