Excelsior Fellows & Constitution Day

2021 EXCELSIOR SERVICE FELLOWS

The Excelsior Service Fellowship Program, launched in 2013, is an initiative to bring highly talented recent graduates of law, graduate, and professional schools into government service. Excelsior Fellows bring diverse backgrounds and new perspectives to a host of policy and operational positions in New York State government. Excelsior Fellows start each year in early September and are placed within the Executive Chamber, a government agency, or authority for a two-year fellowship.

This year, Rockefeller College had four students chosen to participate in the prestigious fellowship program:

Jacklynn Blanchard, MPA ’20

NYS Office of Victim Services

Aaliyah Fernandez, MPA ’21

NYS Department of Corrections and Community Supervision

Madeleine Goodman, MIA ’21

NYS Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation

Alex Pearce, MPA ’21

NYS Department of Health, Center for Health Care Facility Planning, Licensure, and Finances

CONSTITUTION DAY ESSAY CONTEST

Christian Vitek

Senior political science major Christian Vitek was announced as the winner of UAlbany’s 2021 Constitution Day Essay Contest.

Essay competitors were asked: Should term limits be enacted for elected officials in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate? Applicants had up to 500 words to present and defend their views.

Vitek wrote that term limits are needed because of the politicians who “cannot set aside ego and hubris,” serving decade after decade rather than inviting “a passing of political batons to the next generation.”

Using the example of Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, who was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980 and is now in his seventh term, Vitek wrote, “There should be mutual understanding that aging politicians should step down in the interest of the next generations rather than their own political ambitions. Since a mutual understanding of stepping aside for the next class of leaders to step up is absent, there must be a structural caveat to ensure this process happens.”

Vitek received a $250 Visa gift card for his winning essay. In addition, sophomore political science major Isabella Blauvelt-Mercado earned third place and a $50 gift card.

U.S. Constitution Day is a federal observance recognizing the adoption of the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787. Constitution Day at UAlbany is sponsored by Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, the School of Criminal Justice, the Center of Leadership and Service, the Office for Government and Community Relations, Student Affairs, Women and Public Policy, the Alumni Association, UAlbany Votes and SUNY.