Reflection

My internship with No Data Center DeForest began with a fairly clear assignment: help create a historical archive of the QTS data center fight and of the community organizing that formed around it. I expected to spend the summer interviewing people, organizing documents, building timelines, and creating something that future residents, researchers, and organizers could use to understand what happened in DeForest and Vienna. I did do all of that. But the internship also spun out from under me in the best possible way.

Instead of only documenting a movement after the fact, I was a part of the ongoing story. I hadn’t realized that when I decided to take on the internship, that my part in movement was far from being on a pause. I was interviewing the people who built NDCD while also helping organize volunteer meetings, community forums, protests, outreach, statewide events, and conversations about what comes next. I was trying to preserve history while watching more history happen in real time. Sometimes I would be taking notes at a meeting for the archive while also texting someone about snacks, speakers, rides, media, or what the group needed to decide before the next meeting. It was messy. It was overwhelming. It was amazing.

One of my biggest learning goals was to strengthen my ability to research, analyze information, and tell a story ethically. This internship gave me much more practice in that than I expected. The biggest thing I learned?

Archiving is hard.

While sifting through open-records documents, government meeting materials, personal timelines, interviews, QTS responses to Nancy Roth’s 100 questions, transcripts, videos, and community members’ recollections of events that happened over more than a year, I discovered that an archive isn’t just a pile of documents. They are decisions, experiences, learning moments, and oftentimes they hold a full range of emotion that requires the ability to handle them sensitively and carefully.

Each time I would go back to review, edit, and fact-check what I had written, I found myself digging in even deeper than I had prior. I needed to make sure I had every thing exactly right, and that people were being represented the way they would like to be represented. When I am drawing up a narrative profile of a person, it became imperative to me to make sure they were being represented accurately. I am still struggling with a sort of insecurity in this, because it would break my heart to learn that any of the people in No Data Center DeForest (NDCD) felt that I had represented them unfairly.

One of the most important parts of the project for me was that self-fact check process. I had to keep asking myself, “What do I actually know?” and “What do I still need to learn?” When sources conflict, I couldn’t just pick the version that sounds best or fits the story I want to tell. I need to show the conflict, locate stronger evidence when possible, and be honest when something is still uncertain. The archive itself now includes places where the record is incomplete, contradictory, or awaiting confirmation.

I think showing an archive that has those holes, though, is a better reflection of real community history than pretending every answer is sitting neatly in a folder somewhere. The project’s timeline follows that same method, distinguishing official records from personal recollections and keeping open questions visible rather than silently resolving them, or hiding them away from public view.

This experience has also shown me that professionalism is not just about sounding polished or checking boxes. It is about being dependable when something suddenly becomes urgent. Two of the most unexpected parts of my internship were stepping in to coordinate logistics and volunteers for a major Eau Claire event with very little time, and writing and performing a comedy sketch with Charlie Berens and organizers from around Wisconsin. Neither project was part of the original archive assignment, but both helped me build relationships, practice rapid coordination, and understand how messaging can reach people in different ways. A well-researched presentation can move some people, but so can humor, shared frustration, a song, a packed meeting room, or a person realizing they are not alone.

My learning around leadership and teamwork also changed. Before this internship, I probably would have described leadership mostly through formal roles: president, director, chair, manager. NDCD has showed me something much more collaborative. The group works because people take initiative when they see a need. Rhonda organized early meetings and brought information directly to neighbors. Shawn tracked records, timelines, and legal processes even while living in Florida. Nancy asked questions until there were actual documents and answers for residents to point to. Sue built visibility through media work, songs, and the Raging Grannies. Tricia created a space where people could gather, talk, and feel less alone.

My own leadership has looked less like directing everyone and more like creating connective tissue. I have helped organize volunteer outreach, hosted a town hall, kept detailed notes, made surveys to help the group navigate difficult choices, and tried to make sure people always felt useful and included. I have learned that leadership is often just noticing what is missing and deciding to help fill the gap. It can be making a phone call, bringing snacks, asking a question no one else has asked yet, or making sure somebody has a ride home after a draining hearing. (There were a lot of those! 2 am in those harsh lights is never a good look, for anybody.)

The internship also surpassed my goals around communication. I knew I would need to interview people, but I did not fully understand how much care that would require. I know I am beating a broken drum here, but, this really impacted how I handled the project and how I interacted and communicated with people.

Many people involved in NDCD were talking about fear, anger, exhaustion, betrayal, and the feeling that major decisions about their homes and farmland were being made far away from them. I have learned to slow down, listen longer, give people room to go where their memories take them, and clarify whether they are comfortable having something recorded or included in the final project. I have had to become more aware of when a question sounds too aggressive, when a conversation has entered more personal territory, and when it is better to follow a new trail than stick rigidly to my original interview plan.

I think learning how to go where the wind naturally takes me, with this internship, has really benefitted me. I had quite a summer and I am excited to see where I will go next.