GCIP Intern Spotlight: Melisa Morris Interns with Liberty County

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Armstrong State University Student Melisa Morris Interns with Liberty County

Melisa Morris, an information technology (B.I.T.) major at Armstrong State University, interned with Liberty County as part of the 2015 Summer Georgia County Internship Program. Morris was hired to assist the county in updating internal department pages on the Liberty County website. To see Morris’ hwork, please visit the Liberty County website here.

Prior to her internship, Morris did not have detailed information on how county government operated. Through her internship, she learned that many of the issues handled by the county often involve smaller issues that the public generally views as one large issue. As such, the county has to gather, interpret and investigate all of the small details that make up the larger picture to insure that citizens are well-informed.

To help prepare her for the work she was hired to perform during her internship, Morris was instructed by an eGov Strategies technician on how to operate the county website. After learning the operational components, she gathered information from each department to assist in updating the website to be more informative and productive for the departments and the public. Once that phase was complete, Morris trained the users and department heads on how to operate the new model.

When asked about her most significant success during the internship, Morris stated that she was most proud of the appearance of the website that includes new images and department descriptions. She also indicated that additional success was achieved by being able to make information in the forms of documents and reports easily available to the public. Melissa’s favorite part of the internship was learning the various ways that the program could be used to benefit different departments.

Over the course of her internship, Morris was given the opportunity to develop new skills. Some of these included an ability to communicate more clearly with a variety of different people and understanding the process of web design and development. It was her opinion that these skills would definitely benefit her in future endeavors as she hopes to work on big projects with large project scope requiring detailed work with many different clientele.

Liberty County Assistant Administrator Bob Sprinkel spoke highly of Morris.

"Ms. Morris developed tremendously during her tenure with Liberty County," he said. "When she first came to us she was tenuous going and interacting with elected officials, department heads and speaking in front of large groups. However, within a short time, Ms. Morris overcame those hesitations and became a great mediator and speaker. She developed our webpage and a training program that is extremely helpful to our county departments. She was a great asset to our county!" 

For more information on the GCIP, please visit the ACCG Civic Affairs Foundation website here.