Scholar Stories: Cheer's Slavkin Details UN Internship, Political Future
9/26/2018 11:00:00 AM | Features, Spirit Department
Continuing the popular series that began in 2016-17, each Wednesday MGoBlue.com will highlight a Michigan student-athlete and their academic pursuits. These are our Scholar-Athlete Stories, presented by Prairie Farms.
By Jake Freed
University of Michigan senior cheerleader Emily Slavkin was searching for her big break. When she secured an internship at the United Nations, she knew that she had found it.
Slavkin, a political science major, has spent each of the past three summers immersing herself in the world of politics. First, she interned for U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., at the national office in Washington. The next summer, she interned for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Then came the big one: a summer at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, interning with the United Nations Watch.
"The UN Watch, which is a non-governmental organization that protects and promotes human rights, basically monitors the United Nations Human Rights Council," Slavkin said. "About 50 percent of what they do is to promote human rights in Israel and call out the Council for being anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. The other 50 percent is mostly keeping track of the other human rights abusers in the world."
Her internship with the United Nations provided her with significant experience in the political world.
"The Human Rights Council meets three times yearly and I was there for the summer session which lasted three weeks. Every day during the session, I was in the actual council essentially just taking notes verbatim," she explained. "I also got to speak a few times, which was awesome. If I wasn't involved with the council, I worked on other projects or did a variety of research to expose different issues that are going on in the world."
"I was really nervous the first time I spoke in front of the council. If you want to speak on the agenda item, you have to register in advance. Then all the countries speak first and then the countries who aren't voting members speak and then finally all the NGO's (non-governmental organizations) speak."Â
Slavkin also had the opportunity to meet political figures such as former Prime Minister of France Manuel Valls and well-known Harvard professor and pro-Israel advocate Alan Dershowitz.
Reflecting on her experience, Slavin said: "I learned a lot about the council itself and all of the atrocities that happen throughout the world because being from the U.S., we tend to be very ethnocentric. I didn't realize that the Maldives, for example, abuse their people. I also learned about the pro-Israel side of issues, and about how the U.S. handles them."
Originally from Longwood, Florida, Slavkin did not always know she was going to cheer, let alone do so at Michigan. When surveying her options for college, she trimmed her list down to three: Michigan, Indiana and Penn State.
Once she got admitted at U-M, the decision became easier. She emailed coach Pam St. John, secured a tryout and the rest is history. An added bonus: many of the skills she acquired from cheerleading have translated to her everyday life.
"You kind of have to learn your place on the team and know when to speak up and when not to," she said. "I think that can definitely translate into having a job or being on Capitol Hill and knowing when it's your place to say something. Plus, cheering in front of 100,000-plus people definitely made me get over stage fright. I'm very outgoing, which I think helps me do well in these positions and I like to fight for what I believe in and make a difference."
With an already-impressive list of resume-builders, Slavkin has some exciting -- and ambitious -- post-graduate plans in mind.
"I definitely want to go to law school, but not right out of college because they want you to have some work experience beforehand," she said. "Ideally, if everything was easy and perfect in the world, my dream job would be to sit on the Supreme Court. I love American history and politics and the combination of those two things is interpreting the Constitution and that's what the Supreme Court does, but obviously, that's a long way away."
In the meantime, she's planning to move to New York following graduation and hopes to work on one of the Presidential campaigns ahead of the 2020 election. But right now, it's first things first, and that means finishing up her senior year and all that comes with it.
As with all student-athletes, Slavkin has learned that time management is of the utmost importance, a skill that will undoubtedly come in handy should she reach any of her lofty goals.
"We are up late studying and doing homework most nights, just like other student-athletes are," she said. "If you're not at class or at practice, you're pretty much always doing homework. You have to be willing to sacrifice other things, but I think it's definitely worth it."
