Associate Professor Patrick Cunningham was awarded sabbatical leave spring semester 2008 to participate in the Alaska Universities Legislative Internship Program, in Juneau, Alaska. He also collaborated with Dr. Clive Thomas, Professor of Political Science, University of Alaska Southeast (Juneau), on a forthcoming edited textbook, Alaska Politics and Public Policy, to be published by the University of Alaska Press. While in Juneau, he completed a chapter entitled: “Social Services: Interrelated Issues and Policies Responding to the Multiple Needs of Alaska’s Citizens”. Dr. Cunningham interned for Senator Johnny Ellis, the Majority Leader of the Senate. Among the many activities that occur when the Legislature is in session, was the opportunity of carrying legislation through the process, staffing the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee, Public Safety Finance Subcommittee, working on the capital and operating budgets, and constituency work. During the time Professor Thomas was in Europe on a Fulbright Senior Specialist Grant, Professor Cunningham taught the Internship Seminar Class with University of Alaska Southeast Chancellor John Pugh, and an Alaska Politics and Government class on the Juneau campus. Professor Cunningham also had the privilege of participating as an “extra senator” in the filming of a PBS documentary “For the Rights of All: The Alaska Civil Rights Story” starring Diane Benson as Elizabeth Peratrovich, a Tlingit civil rights leader whose dramatic testimony in a Senate Committee hearing led to the passage of a law that outlawed discrimination in the territory of Alaska, in 1945.

Below are a few pictures taken during the sabbatical.