Dispatch from a Baylor Summer Fellow | Lochlan Walsh

If there is anything that my time as a Housing Policy Intern with the City of Waco’s Department of Housing and Community Development has taught me, it is that worldwide leadership starts with local service.  Before the start of my internship, I would often feel overwhelmed when I thought about what kind of public service work I wanted to go into as a Political Science major after I graduate.  It seemed like there were so many different opinions and policy issues coming in from all sides of the political spectrum.  Countless questions would go through my mind: What issue is the most prominent?  How am I supposed to go about addressing it when there are so many societal complexities involved?  What level of government is the most effective?  I didn’t know where to start.  However, I knew that I was passionate about implementing systematic change through policy, so I decided to dedicate my summer towards this effort at the most basic yet applicable level: city government.  I believe that it is impossible to begin to understand federal and international policy issues without first narrowing our lens to see the complexities that exist in our own backyard.  And what better way is there to do that than through public service?

From writing internal procedures to go with Waco’s new Financial Empowerment Center to researching the potential effects of the federal ROAD to Housing Act, my internship this summer has allowed me a wide variety of the experiences involved in helping to run the City of Waco.  I have learned that implementing social services at the local level is far more complicated than I had originally imagined.  The same can be said for the newly passed federal politics being applied at the local level.  Every level of government is deeply connected, and likewise, every aspect of it is essential in order to promote the wellbeing of both our country and our international relationships.  Moreover, local collaboration between different entities is needed for local flourishing.  After writing the referral procedure for the Financial Empowerment Center, I was asked to update all of our community partners who would be using it to refer clients.  These varying organizations are all united under the same goal: to ensure that the citizens of Waco are supported in their financial health so that they can achieve a greater sense of holistic wellbeing.  I believe that this same model should be applied to the varying entities involved in our national and global flourishing.  If we can all unite under the common goal of promoting the flourishing of the individual, I think we would all be surprised at how easily the complications of cultural differences and political opinions will fall away.  We cannot lead without first serving those around us, and we cannot achieve a greater sense of global flourishing without honest collaboration and a community-focused mindset, including both our local and international community.  After serving in this role with the City of Waco, I believe that I am now more equipped to face complex policy issues with this perspective. 

Lochlan Walsh (Junior, University Scholar)