![\"Courtney](\"http:\/\/www.clarksvilleonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Cooper-and-Sen.-Lincoln-480x319.jpg\" "\\"Courtney")
<\/a>Courtney Cooper (left), an Austin Peay State University alumna, is a legislative fellow to Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark.<\/p><\/div>\n
Cooper works as a full-time civil service employee for the Social Security Administration at the agency\u2019s headquarters in Baltimore, MD, a move she made after receiving her master\u2019s in communication from APSU in 2004. Last year, she received an American Political Science Association (APSA) Congressional Fellowship to work in Washington, DC, at the nation\u2019s Capitol. She began her fellowship in January.<\/p>\n
Founded in 1953, the APSA Congressional Fellowship Program is the nation’s oldest and most prestigious congressional fellowship, according to the APSA website. More than 50 years later, the program remains devoted to its original objective of expanding knowledge and awareness of Congress.<\/p>\n
For nine months, select political scientists, journalists, doctors, federal executives and international scholars gain hands-on understanding of the legislative process by serving on congressional staffs.<\/p>\n
Cooper, one of 40 fellows in the 2010 class, said she selected Lincoln \u201cbecause she is strong willed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI admire her work,\u201d she said. \u201cI wanted to work with a senator who was strongly connected to the people.\u201d<\/p>\n
At times, working as a congressional fellow while maintaining her full-time federal job became a test of balance for Cooper, who spoke enthusiastically about her experience on the Hill.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was teetering the balance, learning what I could and couldn\u2019t do,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s not a manual on how to be a Senate staffer, and although we had a good six weeks of orientation in the fellowship program, I was the new kid on the block and had to get in there and learn.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rewards of the fellowship, however, far outweigh the demands.<\/p>\n
\u201c I attended the State of the Union address, and that was a lifetime dream come true,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cYou see things you can\u2019t see on TV. You can smell the divide of the aisle in that room.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also had the opportunity to meet with Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor, members of the Canadian Parliament and the U.S. ambassador to Canada during a recent visit to Ottawa, Ontario.<\/p>\n
Cooper\u2019s fellowship will end in mid-August. She said she is hoping to pursue committee work for the Social Security Administration upon her return to Baltimore.<\/p>\n
\u201cI plan to go back to the SSA and work on the congressional relations staff,\u201d she said. \u201cIt has been a fun-filled fellowship for me, but it\u2019s also one that has helped me to see what I want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On June 8th, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., claimed victory in the Democratic primary runoff election in Little Rock, AR. It was a race in which unions particularly have spent millions of dollars against Lincoln in a failed attempt to keep her and other incumbents from another victory. The reason? It could be something as simple […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[3673,3674,23,262,3675,3676,3677,2050],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xGYI-Po","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3186"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3187,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3186\/revisions\/3187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverclarksville.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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On June 8th, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., claimed victory in the Democratic primary runoff election in Little Rock, AR.<\/p>\n![\"Courtney](\"http:\/\/www.clarksvilleonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/Cooper-and-Sen.-Lincoln.jpg\" "\\"Courtney")
<\/a>