Moti Benti-Novotny worked at Deluxe Corporation

Zarina Sementelli worked at Gray Plant Mooty

Summer is an important time for debaters. There’s no tournaments or after school practice–no school at all, in fact, and plenty of long summer afternoons. But dedicated debaters keep their skills sharp by attending the Minnesota Debate and Advocacy Workshop (MDAW), a summer camp managed by MNUDL and hosted at Augsburg. For students who need help covering the costs of MDAW, there are scholarships available. But sometimes a scholarship is not enough–some debaters need to work through the summer to support themselves or their families.

That’s why MNUDL offers the Summer Fellowship. Under this program, MNUDL partners with a local corporation or law firm who agrees to sponsor a debater for the summer. This debater attends MDAW for its full three weeks at no cost, and then spends four weeks doing experiential work for their sponsor. By doing so, students awarded the fellowship can not only go to debate camp but also have the opportunity to see what kind of professional work is available in fields that value debate experience.

This past summer we awarded two fellowships to rising seniors, Zarina Sementelli (Como Park, St. Paul) and Moti Benti-Novotny (Thomas Edison, Minneapolis). Zarina was sponsored by Minneapolis law firm Gray Plant Mooty, where she had the opportunity to network and work on small projects during her four-week work period. She described it as an eye-opening experience. “I was curious about what a law firm even was,” she said. “I had no idea how many different practices of law there are.”

But Zarina’s perspective has changed since meeting a variety of attorneys, judges, and staff during her time at Gray Plant Mooty – as many as 2-3 per day over the course of four weeks. “I thought it would be a little more boring,” she said. “They went out of their way and they got to know what I wanted to learn.”

Meanwhile, Moti spent his fellowship working for Deluxe Corporation on a large research project about various regulations and conditions that Deluxe has to comply with. He compiled regulatory factsheets for general use and made spreadsheet of different terms and conditions that Deluxe Employees had to be sure not to violate.

This let him stretch his debate skills, especially research, in a practical business context, rather than just reading it out of a textbook. “I have a better understanding of how all of it works together,” he said. It’s helping him plan out his future, too. “I don’t know about going into corporate work,” he said. But moving forwards he has a good grasp of the practical uses of debate skills.

When you’re planning for the future, your experiences are often the only map that can guide you. Debaters who want to take on the summer fellowship might not have that experience yet, but they can use a few pieces of advice left by Zarina and Moti. Moti says that whoever comes after him should make sure to “take notes, listen, pay attention to the words that are used and how they are used or else nothing will make sense.” Zarina suggests that you “tell them exactly what you’re interested in,” and “utilize the resources.” These debaters are leaving summer and taking a lot of memories with them – from debate camp to fellowship work.

This fellowship experience wouldn’t be possible without the partnerships between MNUDL and both Gray Plant Mooty and Deluxe Corporation. These partnerships were made possible by our advisory board members Dean Eyler, an attorney and shareholder at Gray Plant Mooty, and Linnea Solem, the Chief Information Officer at Deluxe Corporation. Previous summer fellows have been featured on our blog – read here about Chris Oquist’s fellowship experience last year.