Toward Policy with Purpose

Published Date April 03, 2025

News Type Public Address

Nina Greenberg stands on the vice president’s balcony at the White House, across from the West Wing. She got to watch Air Force One land and take off while snapping pictures.

By Joan Slattery Wall

Nina Greenberg’s path to the Glenn College, a White House internship and the launch of a new nonprofit began in middle school.

She was in eighth grade when her school, in Sylvania, Ohio, had a walkout for the 2018 Parkland, Florida, mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 people and injured 17 others.

“It was so powerful seeing 11-year-olds stand in silence for 17 minutes while remembering students gunned down in a school,” she said. Eventually, she joined Students Demand Action and became its president at her high school, calling voters, planning marches and rallies and supporting gun sense candidates, and meeting with community members as her hometown of Toledo revamped its gun violence policy. “I felt an adrenalin rush when I was involved and felt this is the first layer of creating change when you organize and come together around an issue. It’s the first way to create the change reflected in policy.”

The public management, leadership and policy major, who expects to graduate in May 2027, sees herself in a political career, running for office.

I think the most beneficial changes, the most widespread changes that could improve the lives of the greatest number of people, would come from the federal level.

Nina Greenberg

Glenn College student

A White House internship as the mail analysis intern within the Office of Presidential Correspondence during President Joe Biden’s term reinforced her plans for a political career.

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“I most enjoyed hearing Americans’ experiences with the administration’s policies and how their lives were improved because of the president’s leadership. Hearing how people felt or reacted or were impacted by the administration’s policies gave me such a renewed sense of purpose and reaffirmed my commitment to public service,” Greenberg said.

“This internship,” she said, “revived my faith in government and showed me that politicians who care about the people they serve can achieve countless successes. I foresee myself running for office in the future and want to legislate at the federal level, so this experience served as a learning opportunity for a future career.”

The internship offered her unique opportunities such as touring the West and East Wings at the White House, helping with the 2024 NATO conference, working at the White House Fourth of July celebration, getting pictures with the president and vice president, using the Truman Bowling Alley, and casually running into high-ranking staff in the cafeteria.

Nina Greenberg visits the halls of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

“I also thoroughly enjoyed interacting with the volunteers in the office, as they often worked in public service before coming to the White House and had amazing stories to share,” she said.

Greenberg nurtures her own passion for public service as an Ohio State Stamps Eminence Scholar, a four-year program that cultivates leaders who effect positive change within their professions and communities locally, nationally and globally. She’s sharing the experience with two other Glenn College students: Stella Hughes, a public policy analysis and city and regional planning major, and Sydney Hopkins, who is majoring in public management, leadership and policy as well as environment and natural resources.

As part of the Stamps Eminence program, Greenberg started a nonprofit organization called Grant Central, in which she and her cohorts are developing a curriculum to train students to write grants to help other nonprofit organizations.

“Our ultimate goal is to reduce the stress nonprofits feel when trying to balance community service with funding their organization,” she said, noting that the effort aims to pair students with organizations whose mission is important to them to aid in retention and help students follow their passions. “I would love to implement this at universities across the country. The only difference would be the nonprofits in the network, based on the school.”

She and her peers recently recruited 18 student grant writers to participate in a pilot semester and began training sessions. They are currently partnered with A Step in the Right Direction, Friends of the Lower Olentangy Watershed, Legal Aid of Southeast and Central Ohio, Cancer Support Community Central Ohio, MagLiteracy, the Dublin Food Pantry and Celebrating One.

Nina Greenberg, left, and members of her Class of 2027 Stamps Eminence Scholars complete a collaborative cooking challenge at a retreat. Her team won best meal and best dressed of the weekend.

She also conducted research with Glenn College Professor Jill Clark, examining Meals on Wheels and its funding sources in Ohio. She hopes to continue research work on a personal interest.

“I have always found the world happiness rankings interesting, and I want to study the factors that place Finland at #1 and those that place the U.S. at #17,” she said. “I hope to explore the differences between our healthcare systems, city structures, forms of government assistance, gun regulations, taxes and more to identify ways the United States can improve citizens’ overall happiness.”

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Greenberg now has an Ohio Government Internship Program position as a page for Ohio Sen. Bill DeMora with duties such as conducting constituent outreach and preparing the Senate and DeMora’s office for upcoming bills.

She said she selected the Glenn College for her studies because of its positive culture, faculty members dedicated to students’ success, and the opportunity to develop leadership skills and actionable experiences in the public interest.

“You learn a lot of on-the-job skills,” she said, “and I actually feel prepared to serve in public service.”

“I personally feel that a lot of the systems that we interact with are either beneficial or hindering our ability to have a high quality of life. Those policies come from the government, and to really make a difference, I feel like the policies are the place to start,” Greenberg said. “Ultimately you can organize your community, but that message goes to an elected official who has the responsibility to put that into policy and enact that for widespread change.”

Read the latest edition of Public Address, the Glenn College magazine.