In the Spring and Summer of 2005, I completed an internship with the Boys & Girls Club of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, assisting the Club with its youth entrepreneurship work and helping to continue and expand upon an existing exchange program with a UK-based youth development organization that focuses to sustainable development.

Through a project called Cheyenne Horizons, I attempted to help the Club and community capitalize on a fairly rich funding opportunity (approx. $1,200 per student and chaperone, originally earmarked for airfare to the UK directly from Montana) to explore the potential of utilizing the exchange program as a vehicle for encouraging:

• experiential and lifelong learning
• greater academic achievement
• cultural preservation and community health
• organizational and community networking / partnership development
• economic development, in the form of youth online business ventures and greater interest in Reservation-based products, services, and amenities
• youth as co-researchers in making their community more pedestrian and youth friendly

We did this primarily through a cross-country college visit/service-learning/cultural tourism road trip from Montana to Boston and back in a van bought on eBay (in addition to the traditional two-week exchange in England).

More a yarn than a formal presentation, this forum will quickly frame this journey, the objectives and results of this project, and pose the following questions:

Was this a legitimate planning internship? If not, how do you define one?

What happens when the internship is over? At a university-level (what happens to our reports)? At a community/organizational level? How do these two groups support each other's mission and plans?

Would there be benefit in greater continuity/intentionality in student internship work and placements over time (students returning to the same organizations / geographic areas / project themes)? How about with UTSOA community-based work, in general?

Who else at UTSOA is exploring youth as co-researchers and/or partners in community planning and development? The intersections of youth development and community development, in general? Historically?

How sustainable are the UTSOA’s travel practices? Does the UTSOA / Center for Sustainable Development attempt to off-set for the environmental costs of its travel (as I did with this internship)? Through contributions to programs like NativeEnergy or booking or other travel decisions? Is there a policy in place?

What resources are available at UTSOA to support innovative internships and/or student-directed research or study opportunities? How can these resources be better promoted / expanded?