FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Joshua Hollis
May 23, 2007
(662) 329-7119

Alumna working at the FCC during the summer
  
COLUMBUS, Miss. – When Mary Kathryn Kirkpatrick, class of 2005, mailed her resume and a cover letter to the Inspector General’s Office of the Federal Communications Commission for a clerkship position in Washington, D.C., she wasn’t sure anything would happen.
   
“It was just a whim,” the Amory native remembers. “I in no way expected to get the job.”
   
But she did get the job, beating out around 90 other applicants. Kirkpatrick was one of only 35 interviewed in Washington. She said she got the call a few days later, telling her she got the position.

“We were proud of her,” said her mother, Mary Jo Kirkpatrick, who serves as the chair of the associate nursing program at MUW. “She’s just the kind of person [that] when she decides she wants to do something, she’s going to do it.”

Kirkpatrick, who will finish law school at Ole Miss in May 2008, said that when she came to MUW, she wasn’t sure what major would be right for her. Again, on a whim, she signed up for the communication program.

In one of his classes, communication chair Dr. Martin Hatton discussed FCC law, which ignited Kirkpatrick’s interests.
   
During her clerkship, Kirkpatrick will have the opportunity to watch the FCC from the inside as it becomes more involved with regulating the Internet and dealing with cases of cyber crime.
   
“This is a great opportunity for her—and anyone—because technology is changing and the laws can’t keep up,” said Hatton. “So we need ethical people to ensure that this is a sound and fair process.”
   
Hatton also said Kirkpatrick has the “moral fabric” to do the job and is proud that someone from MUW is involved in leading this continual process of change.
   
She credits all of her communication classes and English classes—she was an English minor—with helping her get through the great deal of writing required by law school.
   
Kirkpatrick, who last summer clerked in a law office in Jackson, hopes that one day she can practice FCC laws.
   
Her mother believes she won’t have any trouble doing this: “She always finds a way to meet those goals.”