In the Field, 2011-12

Report on the Field Research

Your name: Annette Eneanya
Team: SDC: Against Bullying
Site of interview/observation: Capitol
Date of interview/observation:

1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual:
Rep. Michael Paymar role is to represent what the people in the districts they were elected for. They do what the people want. They are the voice of the people in the capitol.
2. Purpose of the visit
The purpose was to find out more information about the law being re-introduced and how the representatives work inside the capitol. The purpose of this visit was to tell Rep. Paymar are idea and ask questions about proceed with our plan.

3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal?
Rep. Paymar tested us on what we knew. He pushed us to recall all of knowledge of the bullying issue. He purposely made each of us talk sharing our plans, how would we proceed with the plans as well as personal experiences involving bullying.

4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations?
He treated us like adults in a way. He was fishing though for what we know.

5. In what ways were you disappointed?
Information given to us conflict with other information we were told by other adults, so it was hard to know what we should go with, or which one was true.

6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit?
We would have been better off to know as much information as we could as well as having facts and notes easily available for use during the meeting. As well as reread the MN bullying law, so we would be all refreshed on what is said in the law.

7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits?
Know your information, you never know when you would be tested to see if you know your information or if your just “a cute highschoolers”. Be prepared to feel out of your comfort zone, you need to know how to act under pressure and continue to act in control, and mature.

Report on the Field Research

Your name: Annette Eneanya
Team: SDC
Site of interview/observation: Capitol
Date of interview/observation:

1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual:
The role of Jim Davnie is to represent some sections of MN that he was elected for, basically representing the people.

2. Purpose of the visit
The purpose of the visit with Rep. Jim Davnie was to mainly get an idea of what we can do to continue with all our ideas towards bullying.

3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal?
This meeting really made us, me personally think of what we can do to create and push for change. This meeting led to the decision to do a rally at the capitol to hopefully pressuring the legislators that students are involve and what change to the law in MN of bullying.

4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations?
The meeting provided a foundation to our motion, helping us create a structure to what we wanted to do and how to proceed.

5. In what ways were you disappointed?
I was disappointed that the bullying law was veto originally when there is bullying going on in schools.

6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit?
More research about how bullying affected students as well as more stats and background information on bullying in MN compared to other states. But it is hard to know were to start because there is so much information. So we didn’t really know were to begin with, we just started reading information about bullying to help get us going on idea.

7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits?
Coming up with a plan/path so your team as time to take the plan as far as they want to go, as well as allowing for wiggle room in case anything happens. Time runs through your fingers so try to pin point what you want to do and go for it.

Report on the Field Research

Your name: Annette Eneanya
Team: SDC
Site of interview/observation: Pacer
Date of interview/observation:

1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual:
Pacer helps families that have children with disabilities. They provide many resources and education for families to make they lives easier and have a clearer understanding of what is going on and hoe they can more forward. Not alone but together with a supportive group of people.
2. Purpose of the visit
To from a strong connect with the pacer organization, let them into our ideas and plan. We were also there to compare idea and get new ideas, opinions and suggestions.
3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal?
We had to change something’s to fit into the idea of pacer which was a challenge for me because we spent so much time getting to that point of where we were before we want into the meeting.
4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations?
They wanted to expand our idea through the nation hopefully creating a movement in Washington D.C. They also wanted to use us as role models, which we were not expecting at all.
5. In what ways were you disappointed?
That we would have to change something’s like our color. But overall it was an extremely good meeting I was not disappointed.
6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit?
I think we were pretty well prepared to the best of our abilities. They provided a lot of help to help us take a step farther in our cause.

7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits?
Connections make your plan flow smoother, compared to doing it alone without any help. Your group and you don’t know how to do most of the things you learn from experience in public policy. So the more connection and contacts you have the more knowledge that you will acquire.

Louise Edwards
Students Demanding Change
State Capitol

Representative Davnie is the chief author of the Safe Schools for all anti-bullying bill in the state House of Representatives. The purpose of our visit was to ask Representative Davnie what the best way was for us to support the Safe Schools for All Bill and anti-bullying in Minnesota. We purposed our idea of gathering Minnesota high school students in support of the bill. One main way he challenged our way of thinking was that he pointed out the language we use to talk about bullying is very important. For instance, he pointed out that we should use the term “survivor” instead of “victim”. The term survivor puts emphasis on internal strength of the individual, whereas victim implies that the individual had no power to do anything about the bullying that they experience.
As expected, Davnie was also very helpful in giving us advice for how to go about planning our student movement. He was the first to suggested that we get speakers such as Amy Klobuchar or Al Franken, as well as have bracelets or pins to hand out at our event. Although a lot of the conversation was more general then this, he got us on the right path on how to approach planning such a big project. It was disappointing to hear him tell about how the Safe Schools bill had gotten vetoed by Governor Pawlenty previously. We realized it would be very difficult to pass the Safe Schools bill before our meeting, but Representative Davnie confirmed this. If we had been prepared with more specific questions to ask Davnie, he probably would have been able to give us more information. Also, we met with Davnie very early in our process and it we didn’t know a lot of statistics about bullying, especially ones specific to Minnesota. For other teams, it is very helpful to know exactly what you want to ask the person you are meeting with ahead of time and have agenda or list of questions that you want answered during the meeting.

Louise Edwards
Students Demanding Change
State Capitol

Representative Davnie is the chief author of the Safe Schools for all anti-bullying bill in the state House of Representatives. The purpose of our visit was to ask Representative Davnie what the best way was for us to support the Safe Schools for All Bill and anti-bullying in Minnesota. We purposed our idea of gathering Minnesota high school students in support of the bill. One main way he challenged our way of thinking was that he pointed out the language we use to talk about bullying is very important. For instance, he pointed out that we should use the term “survivor” instead of “victim”. The term survivor puts emphasis on internal strength of the individual, whereas victim implies that the individual had no power to do anything about the bullying that they experience.
As expected, Davnie was also very helpful in giving us advice for how to go about planning our student movement. He was the first to suggested that we get speakers such as Amy Klobuchar or Al Franken, as well as have bracelets or pins to hand out at our event. Although a lot of the conversation was more general then this, he got us on the right path on how to approach planning such a big project. It was disappointing to hear him tell about how the Safe Schools bill had gotten vetoed by Governor Pawlenty previously. We realized it would be very difficult to pass the Safe Schools bill before our meeting, but Representative Davnie confirmed this. If we had been prepared with more specific questions to ask Davnie, he probably would have been able to give us more information. Also, we met with Davnie very early in our process and it we didn’t know a lot of statistics about bullying, especially ones specific to Minnesota. For other teams, it is very helpful to know exactly what you want to ask the person you are meeting with ahead of time and have agenda or list of questions that you want answered during the meeting.

Audrey Berdahl-Baldwin
Students Demanding Change
State Office Building
October 11, 2011

1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual:
Representative Jim Davnie is the Chief Author of the Safe Schools for All Bill for the House of Representatives.

2. Purpose of the visit:
We visited Rep. Davnie in the preliminary stages of our project and asked for his advice on what we could do to help the anti-bullying cause.

3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal?
This was a very inspiring meeting. Rep. Davnie had many ideas for what we could do and was very supportive. He helped provide lots of direction for our project, leading us to think about having a rally at the State Capitol.

4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations?
Our visit with Rep. Davnie exceeded my expectations. I had not expected for Rep. Davnie to be so kind and supportive, and he treated our group seriously and respectfully.

5. In what ways were you disappointed?
Our meeting with Davnie wasn’t disappointing, but learning about the challenging political landscape was very frustrating.

6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit?
If our team had had the idea to have a rally at the State Capitol, I believe Rep. Davnie would have been able to offer us even more advice.

7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits?
Despite not having the idea for the rally at the time, we were thinking about hosting an event at MPA and brought a brochure from the Homeless Connect event from an earlier public policy team. We outlined ideas we had for the event and prepared a list of questions ahead of time. In addition, keeping my notes in the same notebook allowed for me to reference back to other ideas and information during our discussion.

Audrey Berdahl-Baldwin
Students Demanding Change
State Office Building
October 25, 2011

1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual:
Representative Michael Paymar is from my district and was a co-author for the Safe Schools for All Bill for the House of Representatives.

2. Purpose of the visit:
We met with Rep. Paymar to see what advice he had for organizing a rally at the Capitol and what ideas he might have to further our cause.

3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal?
Before Rep. Paymar would give us any advice, he rigorously tested our knowledge of the issue for about 20-30 minutes. His confrontational attitude was alarming (and very different from our meeting with Rep. Davnie). Fortunately, we were able to pass his test.

4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations?
Rep. Paymar offered some valuable advice on planning a rally, such as the most strategic timing for our rally. He also talked about the strong resistance we would encounter, which has been helpful in our preparation for our rally.

5. In what ways were you disappointed?
Our meeting with Rep. Paymar was a little less sunshiny than our meeting with Rep. Davnie. While Rep. Paymar was helpful, he was not as openly kind or supportive and quizzed us for a very long time. This was a valuable experience, but it was definitely not as inspiring as our previous meeting with Rep. Davnie.

6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit?
We should have reviewed everything we had researched, and it would have been helpful to gather more information on MPA’s bullying policies.

7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits?
Be very, very prepared. Our team’s strategy of becoming experts in certain areas of our topic made it possible for us to pass Rep. Paymar’s test, because each of us at some time knew the answer to the question he was asking.

Your name: Eric Dahlquist
Team: Neckties
Site of interview/observation: Taste of Scandinavia Bakery
Date of interview/observation: November 16th 2011

1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual: Senator Chamberlain’s role is to represent the voice of the people and to act on the behalf of the people.
2. Purpose of the visit: The purpose of the visit was to locate a sponsor and supporter for my team’s proposed legislation.
3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal? The senator could not think of any counter-arguments to my proposal. He was concerned about being able to fit my group’s agenda into the upcoming session due to time restrictions.
4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations? I expected the senator to critique my proposed legislation and to help my team find further support for our proposal.
5. In what ways were you disappointed? I was not disappointed. I was very pleased with the visit and I was surprised to discover that my senator was very friendly and conversational.
6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit? We would have been better prepared if we knew the healthcare practitioner dress code polices of different government agencies, verbatim. Also, we wish we had asked the senator more questions about furthering and expediting our team’s legislation progress.
7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits? I would strongly encourage other groups to know various stances on their proposal and to be able to provide to quote from various evidence reports and statistics in the field. Also, a group should take thorough notes during the meeting and ask many questions.

Your name: Eric Dahlquist
Team: Neckties
Site of interview/observation: State Office Building, Room 143 in St. Paul
Date of interview/observation: November 9, 2011

1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual: Senator Pappas’s role is to represent the voice of the people and to act on the behalf of the people.
2. Purpose of the visit: The purpose of the visit was to locate a sponsor and supporter for my team’s proposed legislation. My team was looking for bipartisan support and/or sponsorship by talking to both republican and democratic senator.
3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal? The visit did not help progress my team’s objectives. However, the senator’s assistant thought that my group would have a difficult time overcoming the large lobbying body for the medical professionals. The senator’s assistant thought my group’s argument was logical and wondered why there was not already legislation in place.
4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations? The visit did not meet my expectations.
5. In what ways were you disappointed? The senator was not available for the meeting and has not contacted my team since. I ended up speaking with the senator’s assistant.
6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit? My team should have left a brochure with the specific senator’s assistant and various senators’ assistant in order to gain a large support base for our proposal.
7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits? I would advise other groups to remain in contact with their representatives and senators. Also, I would advise groups to get many meetings with senators who are specialized with the group’s topic so that a group could have a backup plan.

Your name: Zosha Winegar-Schultz
Team: Necktie
Site of interview/observation: State Office Building
Date of interview/observation: November 6th, 2011

1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual:
Senator Sandy Pappas, who is an official elected to represent the district I live in.
2. Purpose of the visit:
To inform her about our proposed legislation and ask for her support.
3. In what ways did yourvisit challenge your research and proposal?
We need support from members of the state House. It was a challenge because it was the first time we took our proposal to anyone who is part of the government.
4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations?
We were able to speak with someone, and Eric’s mother bought delicious pizza!
5. In what ways were you disappointed?
Senator Pappas didn’t show up which was disappointing and made me angry.
6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit?
Having a flyer or colorful piece of literature to sum up our project.
7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits?
Be persistent and make SURE they will be there and if not, don’t let the assistant blow you off! They work for you!

Your name: Kate Nicholson
Team: Criminal Neglect of a Vulnerable Adult!
Site of interview/observation: William Mitchell College of Law Cafeteria!
Date of interview/observation: Monday, December 5th, 2011

1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual: Iris Freeman, Adjunct Professor at William Mitchell College of Law and Associate Director of the Center for Elder Justice and Policy

2. Purpose of the visit: The purpose of our visit was to describe our situation and gain information about our subject from an expert and gain a contact, again, an expert in our subject.

3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal?
This visit actually didn’t challenge our proposal or research significantly, but really solidified it and gave it a good foundation with a lot of historical information because Iris has been on top of the issue for decades.

4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations?
This visit met our expectations in that we emailed her quite a few times before we met with her, and we knew what we were going to talk about: present our project, discuss + learn about history of the issue of elder abuse and neglect and the current situation as well as the potential future of our project.

5. In what ways were you disappointed?
We were only disappointed about what we learned about the poor situation of our issue, a sort of stalemate, and that we didn’t get a more concrete direction to take our project in, but she later emailed us with some potential directions which sounded good.

6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit?
I felt quite prepared for our visit, maybe we could’ve come up with more questions, but we already used up more than the time we had, so I feel like it was quite productive.

7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits?
I learned that you should email beforehand (if your contact is willing) and prepare what you plan to discuss.

Your name: Zosha Winegar-Schultz
Team: Necktie
Site of interview/observation: Swede Hollow Resturant & Bakery
Date of interview/observation: November 16th, 2011

1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual:
Senator Chamberlain, who is elected by residents of Shoreview and North Oaks to represent them.
2. Purpose of the visit:
To inform him about our proposed legislation and ask for his support.
3. In what ways did yourvisit challenge your research and proposal?
Sen. Chamberlain is extremely conservative and is a big fan of “the freedoms.” Like wearing ties. He really wanted to know everything about our project, especially about how it has negative economic effects.
4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations?
He asked so many questions, not just about the project but about other political topics. He was very supportive and seemed happy to talk to us. And he was eating a sandwich and being a messy eater and it was sort of nice to meet in an informal environment.
5. In what ways were you disappointed?
He definitely mentioned “faith and family” a few too many times. It got a wee bit uncomfortable.
6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit?
Having a flyer or colorful piece of literature to sum up our project, along with a business card.
7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits?
If you’re meeting in an informal environment, you can relax and still be professional!

Your name: Kate Nicholson
Team: Criminal Neglect of a Vulnerable Adult!
Site of interview/observation: State Office Building
Date of interview/observation: Monday, November 28th, 2011

1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual: MN State Representative Erin Murphy

2. Purpose of the visit: The purpose of our visit was to describe our project and opinions and give the information we’ve found and hear the Representative’s opinion, advice, and position.

3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal?
This visit was in fact the one that challenged our research and proposal the most. All the other people we’d met with previously seemed to be very supportive of our ideas, but Representative Murphy was much more undecided and careful to go either way. She pointed out the flaws in our ideas and the resistance – basically why the law wasn’t already passed. However, this was obviously very helpful at the same time.

4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations?
This visit met our expectations in that we presented our project and ideas, and then heard what Representative Murphy had to say about the issue and what she thought of our project.

5. In what ways were you disappointed?
We were initially disappointed by her lack of enthusiasm for the project. It wasn’t that she didn’t care, but that she wasn’t immediately supportive of the project like everyone else we’ve met with has. However it was very helpful for her to show us our opposition.

6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit?
We could’ve been better prepared by having more questions or statements to back up our position, although we hadn’t met opposition yet and should’ve anticipated it and prepared for that.

7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits?
Be early, because then you have time to collect your thoughts once your there, which is good, and have a list of questions and write things down! I learned that you should email beforehand (if your contact is willing) and prepare what you plan to discuss.

Sydney Eberwein
SDC
State Office Building

SDC met with rep. Davnie, one of the chief authors of the Safe Schools for All Bill. This visit allowed us to gain a more thorough understanding of bullying legislation in MN and to give SDC more of a direction for our energy. Our idea going into the meeting was to have an event, and coming out of the meeting that idea was still in our minds, but it was more cultivated and we know had much to discuss. This first meeting, shaped our understanding or the issue and our pursuit to change bullying.
Davnie was everything we had hoped for. He was kind, extremely knowledgable, and passionate. He was more than willing to assist us with what ever we needed. I was not disappointed by Rep. Davnie. He urged us to take action and continue moving forward with our project.
THis visit went very smoothly as I recall, but we could have researched more of MN public anti-bullying events, such as movies, etc. But Rep. Davnie was more than willing to inform us of certain note worthy events.
THis experience taught me that their are legislators that will love having students help them/their passions. Students should not be afraid to communicate with the government. We can make change happen.

Sydney Eberwein
SDC
State Office Building

Rep. Paymar is audrey representative and he has worked on numerous note worthy issues including gun control. SDC went to Paymar for help on how to orchestrate a rally at the State Capitol. This visit challenge our group and our proposal by showing us that not everyone will be as enthusiastic as we are on anti-bullying. We learned that we needed to be better prepared with research and confidence for future opposition. This visit did not meet my expectations because our previous visit had been with Rep. Davnie who was so passionate about our idea. I was disappointed that Paymar decided to quiz us on if we knew the issue. I felt belittled and unvalued by his tactics. It was twenty no fifty questions before we could even talk to him about the real issue of bullying and ask for his advise.
We could have much better prepared for our meeting. WE had research a lot for our meeting with Rep. Davnie, but before our meeting with Paymar we should have thoroughly reviewed our research so that it was on the tips of our tongues. My advise for other groups is to review, review, review and understand that not all official will be kind and welcoming and that you will, at some point, be treated like a child. Just keep plowing forward. I am so proud of SDc because during the meeting we held everyone up by speaking up when we knew the answer and being confident.

Sydney Eberwein
SDC
State Office Building

SDC met with rep. Davnie, one of the chief authors of the Safe Schools for All Bill. This visit allowed us to gain a more thorough understanding of bullying legislation in MN and to give SDC more of a direction for our energy. Our idea going into the meeting was to have an event, and coming out of the meeting that idea was still in our minds, but it was more cultivated and we know had much to discuss. This first meeting, shaped our understanding or the issue and our pursuit to change bullying.
Davnie was everything we had hoped for. He was kind, extremely knowledgable, and passionate. He was more than willing to assist us with what ever we needed. I was not disappointed by Rep. Davnie. He urged us to take action and continue moving forward with our project.
THis visit went very smoothly as I recall, but we could have researched more of MN public anti-bullying events, such as movies, etc. But Rep. Davnie was more than willing to inform us of certain note worthy events.
THis experience taught me that their are legislators that will love having students help them/their passions. Students should not be afraid to communicate with the government. We can make change happen.

Sydney Eberwein
SDC
State Office Building

Rep. Paymar is audrey representative and he has worked on numerous note worthy issues including gun control. SDC went to Paymar for help on how to orchestrate a rally at the State Capitol. This visit challenge our group and our proposal by showing us that not everyone will be as enthusiastic as we are on anti-bullying. We learned that we needed to be better prepared with research and confidence for future opposition. This visit did not meet my expectations because our previous visit had been with Rep. Davnie who was so passionate about our idea. I was disappointed that Paymar decided to quiz us on if we knew the issue. I felt belittled and unvalued by his tactics. It was twenty no fifty questions before we could even talk to him about the real issue of bullying and ask for his advise.
We could have much better prepared for our meeting. WE had research a lot for our meeting with Rep. Davnie, but before our meeting with Paymar we should have thoroughly reviewed our research so that it was on the tips of our tongues. My advise for other groups is to review, review, review and understand that not all official will be kind and welcoming and that you will, at some point, be treated like a child. Just keep plowing forward. I am so proud of SDc because during the meeting we held everyone up by speaking up when we knew the answer and being confident.

Oops...I just realized I posted the same entry twice, here is the second one that I meant to post:

Louise Edwards
Students Demanding Change
State Capitol

Representative Michael Paymar supports the Safe Schools for All Bill and is a co-author of it. At this point, we had just decided that we would be having a rally at the state capitol. Some of the main questions we had for Representative Paymar were how to organize a rally and how to get a permit to use the capitol. How Paymar went about the meeting with us, was much different than Davnie. He immediately started quizzing us on research and wanted to know why we were interested in the issue. His questioning caught us off guard, but it was a good experience for us to have him engage us in this way. It helped us be able to articulate what we knew about bullying and what things we still needed information on.
As expected, Paymar gave us insight into what days and times would be good to have a rally at the capitol. He also helped us come up with things that we should be thinking about when planning the rally, for instance, how many people would we want, who would speak, what is our message etc. At the time, it was disappointing that he did not know a lot about the logistics of getting a permit, however we didn’t actually end up needing this information until much later – what we needed was easily found online.
Again, having had researched more broadly would have been helpful. Also, we should have looked over the things we had researched more thoroughly before the meeting. Know that representatives might quiz you on information about your topic, and have this in mind before you meet with them.

Your name: John Dietman
Team: Voter ID
Site of interview/observation: Cosmic Coffee
Date of interview/observation: November 9, 2011

1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual: Minnesota Majority
2. Purpose of the visit: Finding an activist group in order to help us organize an activist movement
3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal? It challenged us because we believed in certain aspects of the bill that were changed by the opinions of Minnesota Majority
4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations?
It met our expectations because we found a group who would be willing to help
5. In what ways were you disappointed?
The group seemed like they would be willing to help but only on the final steps and weren’t willing to help us start on the process.
6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit?
I think that we should have researched the group more and possibly the process because when we talked to Minnesota Majority we seemed not as informed as we could have been.
7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits? I learned that we should have better investigated the organization that we were meeting. If we had I think that we might have been able to get more help if we were better informed.

Your name: John Dietman
Team: Voter ID
Site of interview/observation: MPA
Date of interview/observation: October 17, 2011

1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual: Rep. Linda Runback
2. Purpose of the visit: Get more information about the problems facing our issue
3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal? I think it challenged us because Rep. Runback couldn’t think of any problems that would face our issue besides the ones that we had thought of so it didn’t help us too much.
4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations? I think it met our expectations because it helped us get a grasp on things such as budget of the bill and it allowed us a better understanding of the financials that are involved.
5. In what ways were you disappointed? I think that we were disappointed because of the lack of information provided about our questions
6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit? I think that if we had done more research and had a more varied set of questions we might have been better prepared for the problem of Rep. Runback not having the answers that we wanted.
7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits? I learned that in order to not waste peoples’ time it is a good idea to have a variety of questions that are across a broad spectrum of topics.

Your name: Eric Dahlquist
Team: Neckties
Site of interview/observation: Children’s Hospital
Date of interview/observation: January 3rd, 2011

1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual: Patricia Stinchfield is the Director of the pediatric infectious disease, immunology, rheumatology and infection control divisions at St. Paul/Minneapolis Children’s Hospital.
2. Purpose of the visit: The purpose of the visit was to learn about Children’s Hospitals current status and opinion regarding a bare below the elbow policy.
3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal?
She did not outright say that she would not be happy with legislation, but she seemed to imply that there were better ways to implement the idea. We both agreed that a “bare below the elbow” policy is a secondary form of infection control while the hand washing guidelines is a primary form of infection control. That being said, I asked her about legislation regarding hand washing. She replied that there was none. Using that logic, it seems strange to have a “bare below the elbow” legislation if there is not hand washing legislation. One reason she disagreed with the New York legislation was because the definition for “where the idea is implemented” and “what healthcare workers are affected” were poorly defined. Also a big issue in her community was regarding the cost for laundering scrubs. Who pays that cost? The hospital or government? It is very expensive because the hospital uses an offsite laundry coop to clean the scrubs.
4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations? Ms. Stinchfield had done her research regarding BBE. She pulled out magazines, articles and a hospital accreditation standards book and showed me relevant topics. I was happy to hear that the science community supports the BBE policy but there is controversy regarding its implementation. Also, she stated that there is not hard science on the issue probably because not enough hospitals have tried the idea. It’s a “Catch 22” because there is insufficient research due to a lack of implementation of BBE.
5. In what ways were you disappointed?
Frankly, I was not disappointed at all with the meeting.
6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit?
I could not have been better prepared. I had my notebook, evidence, bills, knowledge, questions and pencils. I was alert, well dressed, polite and on time.
7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits?
I learned that obtaining connections, opinions and support regarding one’s issue are of the upmost importance.

Your name: Mohamed Maktal
Team: Photo ID for voting
Site of interview/observation: MPA
Date of interview/observation: October 17, 2011

1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual: Representative Linda Runback
2. Purpose of the visit: in order to obtain any information or any way we can help solve the problem
3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal? : Rep. Linda Runback did not exactly provide us any information that could have proved benificial for us she kind of repeated what senator Chamberlian had stated.
4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations? She did explain topics that related to how we can argue against the opposition through the budget.
5. In what ways were you disappointed? She didnt provide that much information and seemed a little uninterested in the topic
6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit? I think if we took a different approach with our questions we could have maybe gotten better answers
7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits? To prepare better questions and to make sure to cover everything you need in order to get the information needed.

Your name: Mohamed Maktal
Team: Photo ID for voting
Site of interview/observation: MPA
Date of interview/observation: October 10, 2011
1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual: Senator Chamberlain
2. Purpose of the visit: To get a deeper understanding of our subject with a much more knowledgable political figure
3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal? : He knew alot more than we did so we came slightly unprepared but we learned alot more than we expected. Plus he leds in the right direction and gave us guidance.
4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations? He knew alot of the subject and was able to give us important imformation.
5. In what ways were you disappointed? We weren't too disappointed if anything we were impressed with the amount of expertise he had and he took us completley serious to.
6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit? if we had better questions we could have gotten more information and better guidance but we got most of what we wanted
7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits? Don't overestimate yourself becuase even though you feel like you know what you are talking about there is always more to learn.

Sorry the location for the interview was at caribou coffee not MPA for the meeting with senator chamberlain

Your name: Billy Grant
Team: Photo ID
Site of interview/observation: Caribou Coffee
Date of interview/observation: October 10, 2011
1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual: Senator Chamberlain
2. Purpose of the visit: To learn about the issue much more in depth from someone in politics who is much more knowledgeable than we are.
3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal? : He obviously knew a lot more than we did, so we were kind of in a tough spot. But we were still good with our research, and he knew we knew just about as much as any high school kid could know about something like this.
4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations? He knew so much and gave us information that you can't find from research.
5. In what ways were you disappointed? I would say there was no disappointment at all.
6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit? We probably could have had a few more questions, but altogether we got much more than we thought we would, so we were very content.
7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits? Be humble, and always be ready. Have lots of questions, and be ready to be blown away by a someone who knows a lot more than you do.

Your name: Billy Grant
Team: Voter ID
Site of interview/observation: MPA
Date of interview/observation: October 17, 2011
1. Nature of the organization/role of the individual: Representative Linda Runbeck
2. Purpose of the visit: To get more information about our issue.
3. In what ways did your visit challenge your research and proposal? She was not as knowledgeable as we thought, and certainly did not provide us with near as much information as Senator Chamberlain.
4. In what ways did the visit meet your expectations? She did explain topics that related to how we can argue against the opposition through the budget.
5. In what ways were you disappointed? She wasn't as into it as we thought she was. She seemed merely bored, and that we were wasting her time.
6. How might you have been better prepared for your visit? I think if we had more detailed questions that were more interesting for her maybe it could've been different.
7. What did you learn from the experience that might be of help to others as they plan their visits? To never expect too much or too little, and always be much more prepared than you think you need to be.