Briannya Evans (Pardee’27) outside Boston City Hall, where she interned with the City of Boston’s Equity and Inclusion Cabinet through Boston University’s Initiative on Cities. Photos by Ting Wei Li

Student Life

Interning at City Hall: Making an Impact Where It Matters Most

Through her BU Initiative on Cities internship with Boston’s Equity and Inclusion Cabinet, Briannya Evans (Pardee’27) gained hands-on experience in racial equity policy and community engagement

A lot can change in a few months. In May, international relations and public policy student Briannya Evans was immersed in analyzing congressional hearings and producing policy memoranda in the nation’s capital, where she was enrolled in Global Programs’ Washington, D.C. Internship Program. 

By June, Evans (Pardee‘27) was back in Boston and interning at Boston City Hall. 

In the less frantic, more personal environment (her words), she found herself reconsidering the kind of public policy work she wanted to pursue.

Through an internship offered by Boston University’s Initiative on Cities—an interdisciplinary hub for urban research—Evans spent eight weeks this summer working with the City of Boston’s Equity and Inclusion Cabinet. Her responsibilities included researching federal reparations policy, helping organize Juneteenth community events, and supporting a range of equity-focused initiatives. 

“Before this internship, I had always thought that I just wanted to be in D.C.,” Evans says. “But after working in City Hall, I liked how much more local it was.” 

As a Black woman, Evans says her own experiences have shaped her interest in public policy. An internship with a local school board member during high school further solidified her passion for local government. “I think being involved and being informed is really important,” she says. “I find this kind of work very meaningful.”

For Evans, the most rewarding part of the internship was engaging directly with community members and seeing how government programs could—or already have—improved their lives. “There are times when I talk to people, and they say, ‘Oh yeah, this really helped me,’” Evans says. “And that is really meaningful, and it just makes me want to be doing what I do.”

As part of her internship, Evans completed a seven-week research project comparing Boston with three peer cities—Baltimore, New Orleans, and Tampa—examining each city’s racial justice initiatives to identify policies that could inform the Cabinet’s future decisions, and produced recommendations for adopting those strategies. 

Although the project focused heavily on education policy—a field Evans is especially interested in—many of her day-to-day responsibilities exposed her to unfamiliar policy areas, including voting rights and housing assistance. Rather than feeling intimidated, though, she says she embraced the opportunity to broaden her interests. 

“Being flexible and open really made me get the most out of my experience, because I tried not to confine myself to a specific thing,” Evans says. “Just being available whenever my supervisors needed me [is] how I ended up doing some really cool things.” 

Her internship got her out of her comfort zone in more ways than one: she recalls initially being hesitant to offer feedback during meetings, feeling that it wasn’t her place as an intern to speak up. That changed after a project leader sought her out following a meeting, specifically asked for her perspective, and then incorporated her suggestions. 

“I definitely think not being afraid to share your honest thoughts is really important and leads to both better policy and better outcomes,” Evans says. “You get to stay true to your own motivations and your own goals and intentions.”

Evans first learned about the Equity and Inclusion Cabinet internship in 2025 through Christine Slaughter, a College of Arts & Sciences assistant professor of political science and a mentor within the Initiative on Cities.

Slaughter, who also serves on the Initiative on Cities faculty advisory board, says she enjoys connecting students with opportunities, especially since internships can “help bring to life” what they learn in the classroom. 

“The one thing that students see when they go to the State House, the City Hall or any local political institution, is that policy sometimes doesn’t always happen by the books,” Slaughter says. “There are various pathways or things behind the scenes that occur that you don’t necessarily learn in the classroom.” 

For students interested in pursuing similar internships, Evans’s advice is to “just apply.”

“Put your best foot forward; always be eager to work,” she says. “And I think the doors will just open, and you’ll find that it’s a really great experience.”