FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                      March 1, 2004

CAMMIE VLOEDMAN SELECTED FOR WASHINGTON INTERNSHIP

            Cammie Vloedman, a Northwestern Oklahoma State University junior from Oklahoma City, is one of 15 college students from across the nation selected for a summer internship in Washington, D.C.

            The Microsoft-American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) Federal Information Technology internships are funded by Microsoft and include all expenses and a stipend. The interns will be assigned to a federal government agency. Vloedman has not yet been assigned to a particular department, but has expressed her first choice as the Department of Homeland Security and her second as the Department of Agriculture.

            “I am excited about the networking opportunity and I’m excited about seeing our national government at its worst or best, whichever way you want to look at it,” Vloedman said.

            Selection was based on each student’s resume, three essays and a phone interview. Debra Hogan, instructor in computer science and one of Vloedman’s teachers, said there was very little emphasis put on disabilities, allowing students to be selected on the basis of ability.

            “They really looked at the essays and her resume first,” Hogan said. “The application only asked if she qualified as a disabled student. The disability aspect took a backseat to her achievements.”

Vloedman, an Edmond High School graduate majoring in E-commerce, is visually impaired.

            “Hopefully, this internship will help me learn different things and find something that I think would be cool to do,” Vloedman said. “I like the design aspect of things and would like to design Web pages and Power Point presentations.

She taught herself to use a computer in 1996. She said her main obstacles have been understanding programming and actually being able to see what is on the screen.

“All the E-commerce classes are on ITV [Interactive Television] and I had to get televisions so I could see. Even with magnification there were times in some of the programming when I would put a period instead of a semi-color or comma and the whole program would crash,” she said.

Vloedman noted that being at Northwestern has been an asset.

“Since Northwestern is small, I have a lot of the same teachers, so they already know what I need,” she said.

            While in Washington, the interns will live at George Washington University. The internship runs from May 23 through Aug. 6.

Northwestern Oklahoma State University junior Cammie Vloedman (seated) of Oklahoma City has been selected for one of 15 internships in Washington, D.C. through Microsoft and the American Association of People with Disabilities. With her are her adviser Dr. Jerry Gustafson, professor of E-commerce, and computer science instructor Debra Hogan. Vloedman, who is visually impaired, is a graduate of Edmond High School.

-NW-

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