Lashun Burton of Crossett, Ark., and Lindsay Kuehn of Minneapolis have been selected as the first summer interns in UALR’s Shepherd Poverty Studies Program, according to program director Dr. David Sink.

Burton, a senior marketing major, will spend eight weeks this summer working at The Achievement Project (TAP), a youth education program in Chester, Pa. The city of 37,000 is on the south edge of Philadelphia, and TAP is a nonprofit organization that helps young people in Chester succeed in high school, apply and be admitted to college, and arrive at college having acquired the capacity to succeed there.

Kuehn, who just finished her first year at UALR’s William H. Bowen School of Law, will work at Legal Aid of Arkansas in Helena. She is enrolled in the current Juris Doctorate/Master of Public Service degree program offered by the Bowen School and the Clinton School of Public Service.

The Bowen law school is one of the few graduate schools participating in the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va.

Burton has completed a year of study in UALR’s Shepherd Program, which is also a part of the consortium. The undergraduate program, administered out of the university’s Office of Community Engagement, offers a minor and undergraduate certificate in poverty studies.

“We are pleased that Lashun has accepted our challenge to spend eight weeks in a poverty circumstance,” Sink said. “She will face situations that she has only read about in our classes. It will be a real learning experience.”

Professor Kelly Terry, director of externship programs at the Bowen School, said UALR is among 13 consortium universities which are mostly located in the eastern United States. Other member institutions include Baylor University, Berea College, Spelman College, the University of Notre Dame, Furman University, and Virginia Military Institute.

The consortium integrates rigorous academic study and focuses direct service to disadvantaged communities and persons and supplements and enriches the education of undergraduate and law students in all majors and career paths. The intent of the program is to prepare students for lives aimed at diminishing poverty and enhancing human capability through professional and civic efforts.

The program’s summer interns from across the country will convene in Little Rock in August to report on their experiences.