Tufts Student, MHS Grad Spends Summer at City Hall
The following news release was provided by Tufts University for publication on InsideMedford.com:
Tufts student and Medford resident Nabil Hoq is working at the Medford mayor’s office this summer as a fellow of Tufts University’s Tisch College Active Citizenship Summer (ACS) program.
Launched in 2001, ACS places students at nonprofit organizations or government agencies full time, helping students to develop their civic and leadership skills while working to meet community-identified needs.
As an intern in the office of Mayor Michael J. McGlynn, Hoq will contribute to several projects in various municipal departments during the course of the summer, including the Office of Human Diversity & Compliance, the Energy & Environment Office, and the Medford Council on Aging.
Hoq immigrated to the United States from Bangladesh in 2004, and has recently been granted U.S. citizenship. He notes that a summer internship at the mayor’s office provides him with an opportunity to enrich his community.
“I am grateful for the quality of public education and the other facilities that I received in high school, and I wanted to give back to the city of Medford,” he says. “I knew that the municipal government was making large cuts this summer due to the economy, and I felt it was the right time to use my skills as a Tufts student and a Medford resident to help the city.”
At the Office of Human Diversity & Compliance, Hoq coordinated the “Spring Into Access” information fair, held on June 10. The fair assembled 40 vendors representing local agencies, with the goal of providing information on topics such as children and family services, culture, education, employment, housing, legal, and medical and health services. According to Diversity Director Diane McLeod, the fair received wonderful reviews and it may become an annual event.
For the Medford Council on Aging, Hoq updated the “Information & Referral Guide,” which allows residents to access programs that improve the quality of life for local elders. Hoq also joined students from around the country to attend the U.S. Conference of Mayors held in June in Providence, R.I.
“I got to meet and interact with about 200 mayors and city officials from all over the U.S. and learned a great deal from them about the issues that municipal governments like Medford face, and what is being done to solve those issues,” he said.
Hoq will be a sophomore at Tufts next year and plans to major in international relations, with a concentration in the Middle East and South Asia, and also intends to minor in Arabic. He hopes to pursue a career in law or continue his studies in international relations.
A program of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, ACS “is an extension of Tisch College’s mission — ensuring that students graduate from Tufts prepared to be committed public citizens and leaders who take an active role in building stronger communities,” according to its program coordinator Rachel Szyman.
This year, the Tisch ACS program had 130 applicants and accepted 67 students. Szyman says she looks for students who are thoughtful about social inequalities and interested in engaging their Tufts peers in understanding and addressing community-identified needs.
“Here at Tisch College we look to have students gain core civic knowledge, skills and values including critical thinking, organizing, leadership and communications,” says Szyman.