2019/2020 NLC MENINO FELLOW

The Initiative on Cities (IOC) is pleased to announce Elizabeth Clackson (Boston University Class of 2022) as our 2019-2020 National League of Cities (NLC) Menino Fellow. Elizabeth is a Political Science major who hopes to work in public policy and urban governance. Through this Fellowship, Elizabeth will spend the fall semester paired with IOC Director and Professor Graham Wilson in an on-campus Directed Study program. She will spend the 2020 spring semester in Boston University’s (BU) Washington, DC study abroad program, where she will take classes and participate in a paid internship in the National League of Cities’ Institute for Youth, Education and Families.

Through her Directed Study and her internship with the NLC, Elizabeth will look further into the Boston Centers for Youth and Families (BCYF) to see if equity exists between each of the locations in programs, pricing, funding, and facilities. She will evaluate BCYF’s accessibility to each community they serve by researching each center and the varying programs they

offer per location and analyzing membership fees and comparing it with the average income per location. Elizabeth hopes to see if programs, such as these centers, help or harm the equity of communities and cities at large, using Boston as a case study.

Elizabeth comes to fellowship with a passion for social justice and advocacy work, particularly for marginalized communities. On campus, she is a member of BU’s Filipino Student Association (BUFSA), where she helps the organization expand knowledge and raise awareness of Filipino traditions through community involvement and education. Off campus, she served as an outreach intern at the Mayor Marc McGovern’s office in the City of Cambridge. Through her internship, she engaged Cambridge’s constituents through surveys, compiling data reports, and drafting policy proposals for the mayor to consider.

The National League of Cities Menino Fellowship is a joint effort by the Initiative on Cities and the National League of Cities Institute for Youth, Education and Families. It is named in honor of IOC Co-Founder and former Mayor of Boston, Thomas Menino. Mayor Menino was dedicated to serving the youngest members of urban populations and in 2000, he helped found the Institute for Youth, Education and Families. The NLC Menino Fellowship upholds that commitment.