After writing my article about the stipends Elon University’s School of Law provides for students doing summer internships, I learned more from law student Jason Senges about how the program works and am excited to share this information on The Pendulum blog. The Public Interest Law Society (PILS) stipend only goes to a student that is doing public interest work. Last year’s recipients worked in a public defender’s office and with Guardian and Litern. The stipends for the Leadership Fellows benefit non-profit and public interest practices by enabling them to have interns work for them because the interns can work for free. As Senges explained, had it not been for the stipend, he would not have been able to work for the entirety of the summer. The stipends are a way the law students can give back to the communities, according to Senges. If Elon wanted to give similar stipends to undergraduates, they would be for students working over the summer in programs that benefit the community and potentially change lives. Senges suggested the undergraduate Leadership Fellows would be a good organization to start fundraising for student stipends.
Although I do think the School of Communications or the Love School of Business could benefit from a stipend program, which I mentioned in the article, I now understand the nature of the internships the law students were participating in. I think a stipend that not only helps a student but also the organization for which they are interning is a very intriguing and worthy concept.
Want to know more? Check out Grace's original article.