Page 258 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

FELLOWS AT WORK

schedules six to eight interviews for each Fellow. These interviews are
crucial not only to the success of the Fellowship year but also to the years
beyond. Consider Doris Meissner (WHF 73–-74). Although she was not a
lawyer, Meissner always had been interested in legal issues. When it came
time to indicate where she’d like to work in her Fellowship year, she chose
the Department of Justice under Attorney General Elliott Richardson.
The White House Fellows office scheduled her interview and sent her to
see Richardson on the appointed day.
“When I got to my interview with Elliott Richardson, he asked me
why I wanted to come to the Justice Department since I wasn’t a lawyer,”
Meissner recalled. “So I said what only a thirty-year-old would be bold
enough to say. I looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘Because justice
is too important to be left to lawyers alone.’ The minute I said that I saw
this look come across his face that told me I was going to get that job,
because he understood that answer and was intrigued by it and my brash-
ness.” Meissner was right: She got the job, focused her attention on immi-
gration, and at the conclusion of her Fellowship year continued her work
in Washington in a variety of agencies and departments until 1986, when
she left to join the Carnegie Endowment. Meissner would return to Wash-
ington in 1993 when President Bill Clinton chose her to serve as Commis-
sioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, a post she filled for
seven years. “I trace an enormous amount back to the White House Fel-
lows experience because that brought me into government at a level with
a vantage point that is so unique. I never would have been in those places
had it not been for the Fellowship in the first place,” Meissner said. Most
Fellows agree that the Fellowship placement interviews are among the most
critical meetings of their lives.
After the interviews, the Program Director must do the federal gov-
ernment equivalent of what Diane Yu (WHF 86–87) calls “computer dat-
ing”: matching a willing Fellow with a willing department, agency, or
White House office. Then he or she announces each Fellow’s new job
assignment, which begins on September 1 and ends on August 31 of the
next year. Fellows all earn a standard salary that coincides with federal pay
grade GS-14, step 3. In 2008, that amount was $103,565. After receiving
their job assignments, the exhausted Fellows return home and prepare for
their move to Washington, D.C., and the start of what promises to be a
remarkable year of learning and leadership.

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