CUNY Interns Assist in Producing Voter Guide for Fall Elections
9/9/2009
Brooklyn College senior Karine Fleurima is gearing up for fall elections. The performance and interactive media arts student in the CUNY Baccalaureate Program is working as an intern on a video voter guide for the 2009 municipal elections at the NBC studios with two other CUNY students. 
A joint project sponsored by City Hall, CUNY-TV and NBC, the guide allows qualifying political candidates to tape a statement about their platforms. It will be rolled out in September and will also be available online. The Video Voter Guide will air on NY Nonstop and NYC TV Channel 74 each election. The primary election Video Voter Guide will begin airing on Monday, September 7, at noon on NY Nonstop and at 8 p.m. on NYC TV Channel 74. The public can also watch these videotaped statements online: They will be posted on www.nyc.gov/videovoter/ and NBCNewYork.com, and they will be linked to users’ Voter Guide profile in the online Voter Guide.
Fleurima, a student at University of Texas at Austin who transferred to Brooklyn College in the fall 2007 semester, landed the internship through the New York City Internship Program in Government and Public Affairs, coordinated by CUNY’s Edward T. Rogowsky Internship Program.
“As CUNY interns at NBC, our responsibility is to facilitate the production process by guiding the candidates throughout the various phases of the shoot,” explains Fleurima, who is working with Katherine Mateo (Lehman College) and Mila Matveeva (Hunter College).
A self-described “socially conscious person” who has done community organizing in Brooklyn, Fleurima says she likes to stay aware of the political process and how to bring “the necessary changes we need to make to improve our communities.”
The Edward T. Rogowsky Internship Program is named after the late professor emeritus of political science at Brooklyn College and director of the Brooklyn College Graduate Center for Worker Education. Until his death in March 2001, Rogowsky wrote many books and articles about politics, voting and economic development in New York City.
