The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism today announced the hiring of three students from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication for full-time paid summer internships.

Two students, Nick Penzenstadler and Allie Tempus, were chosen from a highly competitive pool of 27 applicants, said Andy Hall, the Center’s executive director. Sara Jerving, who has served as an intern since last fall, also will receive a summer internship, Hall said.

Jerving, a senior from Madison, has produced stories widely circulated by Wisconsin news media, including an authoritative report about the troubling rise in suicides in Wisconsin. She was a member of a team that recently examined the underreporting of sexual assaults on University of Wisconsin System campuses. Last spring, Jerving reported for a community radio station in Nairobi, Kenya. In 2008, she was an intern for the Associated Press in Brussels. Jerving also has worked for two student newspapers, The Badger Herald and the The Daily Cardinal. She plans to graduate in May.

Penzenstadler, of Oshkosh, interned last summer for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel’s award-winning Watchdog Team. He currently is an intern for Isthmus, Madison’s weekly newspaper, and publisher of The Badger Herald, where he has worked since fall 2006. Penzenstadler was the winner of a 2009 Wisconsin Newspaper Association Foundation Scholarship for Print Journalism. He plans to graduate in May.

Tempus, a junior from Shawano, has extensive experience reporting and taking photographs for her hometown newspaper, the Shawano Leader. Tempus currently is the assistant news editor for the The Badger Herald, where she has worked since fall 2007. Among her accomplishments is a first-place award in feature writing from the Wisconsin Newspaper Association’s collegiate journalism contest. Tempus plans to graduate in December.

Dee J. Hall, a veteran award-winning investigative reporter, will serve in a voluntary role as coordinator of the Center’s interns this summer while on leave from her reporting position with the Wisconsin State Journal.

The nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism (www.WisconsinWatch.org) collaborates with its partners — the School of Journalism & Mass Communication, where it is housed; Wisconsin Public Television and Wisconsin Public Radio — and news media across the nation. The Center strives to raise the quality and amount of investigative reporting across Wisconsin while training a new generation of investigative reporters. Its reports, which focus upon government integrity and quality of life issues, are distributed for free to the media of Wisconsin.