Nadia Burroughs ’21

National Urban League, New York, NY

This past summer I interned with the National Urban League in their Talent Management Department. The two biggest projects I was involved with were the President’s Project and the Career and Networking Fair, which placed me in major leadership roles that required me to rise up to responsibilities that I was never exposed to previously. This aspect of the internship—gaining leadership skills through experience—was my takeaway of the summer.

The President’s Project was a collective project that all of the interns worked on. As a group, we could not easily decide how controversial of a topic we wanted to present to the executive cabinet, so eventually we took a vote between two topics: gender and sexuality inclusivity or sustainability (which was my idea). Even between these two topics, I was very torn. The National Urban League (NUL) is a non-profit organization that works primarily on social justice issues surrounding Black communities. For example, this summer the NUL held their annual conference which I was able to attend. In this conference, they unite different Urban League affiliates and professionals from around the world and invite members from the local community to join in their festivities. Unfortunately, in this day and age, institutions like the NUL, despite being founded on revolutionary ideas of civil rights and equality across different races, are still based on old beliefs that are not always inclusive of gender and sexuality. So the choice for me was whether I wanted to completely shock the executive cabinet and present on a topic that I am passionate about but they would not truly embrace, or present on something that has some shock factor because it is a largely controversial topic nationally, that they might be more willing to listen to.

In the end, I voted on sustainability which won by majority vote! I was quite excited that many of the other interns were interested in my idea, but I quickly learned that they expected me to have a fully flushed out proposal along with that idea. This kind of pressure was something that I was not at all used to nor had any experience with. Thus, the project felt like my responsibility since everyone came to me with questions instead of asking the group when major decisions needed to be made. At first, I wondered if that’s what leaders do, but eventually I realized that this attitude was simply unfair and that I was doing most of the work because other people did not care enough to put in the extra hours needed. (Being a Williams student, I was very used to working long and intense hours when necessary.) And I wondered what the organization thought about the situation I found myself in.

At the NUL 2019 Annual Conference & Career and Networking Fair.

Many times I thought my supervisors were not paying enough attention to the interns to understand the negative work dynamic; yet, they would often surprise me by showing that they knew and understood. I was worried every time that we would have a check-in meeting with our supervisors and many people came empty-handed, so I would find a way to create new things to show them with our supposed progress. In those meetings, I felt that others were able to see what was going on and by that, who was actually doing work and contributing. This is not to say that I was worried about receiving credit; it was about integrity. I was also worried about how much of this would affect our presentation. Because I felt I was on my own with this project, I was afraid that the presentation would falter. Considering my weakest attribute is actually presenting, I needed other people to know the presentation like the back of their hand to help me where I fell short. That was the core of it all: I needed help and I had no one that I confided in to offer it to me. Fortunately, as we got closer to the deadline, the supervisors became more involved in our presentation, giving advice on visual and informational aspects of our proposal. They were people who openly expressed how much they cared by saying they were worried about our presentation and that other interns needed to step up. They were harshly sincere, but I could not thank them enough for it because with their critiques also came solutions. I got more done with them than I could have with the interns in the group. Eventually, I also saw that they were just an extension of my team.

This is the kind of mindset I realized will be valuable in future projects when I need to work in groups—in any career I choose to pursue. I recognize that I may never truly find the key to a seamless group dynamic, that it will always depend on the people that I am working with. Now, I at least know that resources can be found through different people. I just need to take initiative and open my eyes to others who are kind enough to help.

Regarding the annual conference that I attended, I am really proud of being a part of that experience. I was able to help create an event focused on professional development for the Black community. Five presidential candidates gave speeches for their campaign during this conference, and to be able to create this political space for an audience that otherwise may not have ever had the means to enter it, especially in such an intense political climate, is unique for many people. It in and of itself increases inclusion by example. One of the recurring problems that the NUL tries to address and solve among Black people is political exclusion, especially when it comes to voting. So being that there are major elections coming up very soon, with very high stakes for so many marginalized communities across the nation, the meaningful work that NUL is doing to educate and include Black people is what we need and expect from institutions that are to be taken seriously.

Thank you to the Class of 1966 who made it possible for me to learn as much about myself as I did this summer. I had a wonderful experience and foresee the continuation of positive impacts in my life from it, and I hope this program keeps growing for many more students to participate in ASIPs.