ISU students shadow Mayor Blad as part of the university’s “Signature Experiences” program
For most college students, spring break isn’t a time you plan to spend in City Hall, going from meeting to meeting. This Thursday and Friday, that’s exactly what ISU senior Trevyan Marley will be doing.
Marley, double majoring in political science and global studies, was looking for internship opportunities when someone at the student involvement center told her about the chance to work with the Mayor.
“Are you interested? And I said absolutely, I’m more than happy to take any kind of opportunity you know, while I’m here,” Marley said. “It’s been awesome so far.”
On Thursday, Marley and Mayor Blad attended several morning meetings with a long day ahead of them.
“It’s a pretty busy day today,” Mayor Blad said. “It’s a great experience for them to be able to come in and see kind of what happens.”
The experience is similar to being “Mayor for a day” but nothing is toned down.
“If we’re dealing with some very complex things, we don’t want the 6th grader to just be bored still,” Blad explained, saying they want the ISU students to get a truer to life view of how things happen.
“We kind of make this, this is the life of the Mayor,” Blad said. “If we have things happen, they’re right in the middle of it and they get to see what it’s really like.”
Even through the first few hours of her day, Marley noticed significant differences between the way student government and the City of Pocatello are run.
“It’s like a wildfire and now this is kind of like a controlled little bonfire,” she said. “It’s been an interesting journey.”
Marley said that she was surprised by the way members of the city work together.
“The end goal is to make progress and I feel like with changes in the political spectrum there’s just a lot of I just want to talk,” she said. “But no, there’s a lot of people who are talking to make progress and that’s what I’ve really noticed hands on.”
Marley is just one of two ISU students who participated in this years program. The other, Mikayla Morgan, shadowed the Mayor on Monday and Tuesday.
