HILLSDALE, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Michigan’s Hillsdale College is celebrating their 50th year of their Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program (WHIP). Over the years, more than 685 students have participated in the program, allowing them the opportunity to live, work and study in Washington DC.
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The Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program was founded in 1973 and it provides undergraduate students with the opportunity to participate in semester-long internships while continuing their Hillsdale education.
The participating students have successfully secured internships at the White House, Congressional offices and committees, various think tanks, media and news outlets, national security agencies, museums, lobbying firms, international trade organizations, and charter and private schools.
The Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program is open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors of all majors. Participating students live in Hillsdale housing located in a Capitol Hill neighborhood and take evening classes at Hillsdale’s D.C. campus.
Matthew Spalding, vice president for Washington operations and dean of the Van Andel Graduate School of Government, says, “WHIP is a unique learning experience for Hillsdale students. In the evening, students discuss politics and history in their classes. In the morning, they go into work, experience politics in practice, and see the history of the United States all around them. The immersion in ideas and practice is formative and life-changing.”
Hillsdale College opened a permanent campus in Washington, D.C. In 2010. It houses the Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship and the Steve and Amy Van Andel Graduate School of Government. The campus contains a large lecture hall, reception rooms, classrooms, a library and study space for Hillsdale students, and offices for the Hillsdale in D.C. faculty and staff. Plans to renovate and expand the campus are in the final stages.
Hillsdale College says that their campus in Washington, D.C. extends the College’s educational mission to the nation’s capital by teaching and promoting the principles and practice of American constitutionalism and seeks to inspire and form students, citizens, practitioners, and statesmen, who will restore America’s principles and revive self-government in the political life of the nation.
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Hillsdale College itself is an independent, nonsectarian, Christian liberal arts college located in southern Michigan. Founded in 1844, the College has built a national reputation through its classical liberal arts core curriculum and its principled refusal to accept federal or state taxpayer subsidies, even indirectly in the form of student grants or loans. It also conducts an outreach effort promoting civil and religious liberty, including a free monthly speech digest, Imprimis, with a circulation of more than 6.2 million.
Hillsdale College has even inspired Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to come up with something similar. USA Today reports that Gov. DeSantis has appointed six new members to the board of trustees of a public college in Florida that describes itself as a “community of free thinkers, risk takers and trailblazers.” Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz said she hopes the changes will lead to the New College of Florida becoming Florida’s classical college “more along the lines of a Hillsdale of the South.”
