Spotlight Online for Career Services Professionals, April 28, 2010

There are three key advantages of a college or university having a formal and effective internship and/or cooperative education program, according to Edward Lordan, internship program director in West Chester University’s Communication Studies Department.  

“[Internships and co-ops] offer work experience that can’t be replicated in the classroom, marketable experience that can be applied directly to the resume, and the beginnings of a professional network that the student will need throughout his or her career,” he explains.  

Gaining work experience is a valuable component of students’ marketability to potential employers. For schools that are considering launching experiential education programs, there are several key steps to take to ensure a smoother program implementation.  

Carrie McAteer-Fournier, associate director of DePaul University’s Internship Program, says one of the most important steps is getting support from faculty and administration for the program as early as possible. When DePaul was developing its internship program more than a decade ago, one way this was accomplished was by demonstrating the academic components of the internship program. This component remains strong today.  

DePaul demonstrates its internship program’s academic focus in several ways. First, it has six four-credit internship classes taught by adjunct faculty members who have extensive real-world work experience. These classes cover workplace issues such as ethics, corporate social responsibility, leadership, and more. In addition, the internship enrollment process requires a student who has identified an internship opportunity to submit an electronic proposal to the internship coordinators for them to guarantee the program’s standards are met. These standards include, but are not limited to, ensuring the student is using and developing his or her interpersonal, analytical, and technical skills.  

“The next step is to contact the employer to verify the information and make sure they understand their roles to supervise and mentor the students,” McAteer-Fournier says. “Toward the completion of the course, we send an evaluation for the supervisor to complete and submit to us. This evaluation is a component of the student’s grade for the course.” 

Prior to launch, DePaul’s internship program also established partnerships with academic advisers, who have relationships with students and can “market” the experiential education program. 

In addition to working with faculty, Lordan recommends securing buy-in to the program from the school’s administration.  

“Unless they understand that this is a time-consuming program that requires on-going, professional management, it will fail,” he says.  

Like McAteer-Fournier, Lordan underscores the importance of stressing the academic component of the experiential education program to faculty and administration by developing a concrete set of objectives and procedures that ensure academic integrity. 

Another critical step is to ensure there are ample experiential education opportunities available for students at launch and going forward. DePaul established ties early with the local business community through work with organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce, and since then, the program has partnered with other local civic organizations and professional associations to network with and market the internship program to member employers. Approximately 40 to 50 new internships are created annually as a result of active participation with these organizations.   

Communication with students and employers is also a key element of a successful experiential education program. Lordan points out that it’s important for internship and co-op program managers to recognize that, unlike a classroom setting, the vast majority of the adviser/applicant relationship is going to be handled long-distance.  

“It is far more important to communicate expectations and procedures up front because students will be, for the most part, out of your immediate orbit while they are taking the internship,” he notes. “For the same reason, it is essential to monitor regularly and be as proactive as possible with identifying and resolving problems. This is a long-distance relationship, and small problems can become big problems if you don’t see them and address them quickly.”  

He suggests program managers develop a comprehensive system for collecting internships, screening applicants, informing applicants about the program, and communicating with both applicants and on-site supervisors.  

“And use the Internet,” Lordan adds. “We have developed an extremely useful web site that is accessible to both internship organizations and interns. It saves time, keeps things cohesive, and gets information to people faster.” 

Managing the program can be challenging as well. McAteer-Fournier recommends internship and co-op program managers put into place a firm process for student internship proposal submissions and approvals well in advance of the launch to ensure a seamless enrollment process.  

“If the small logistics aren’t in place at the beginning—how to track where students are working, supervisor contact info—it’s going to present challenges to managing a successful internship program,” she says. “I recommend setting up an easy-to-use data base with employer and industry data, and specific information, such as the ability to identify the employer as an alum or to denote how students found their internships. This is helpful internal information, but it’s also good information for reporting.”  

Finally, there are legal issues—such as hold harmless indemnities and fair labor standards—to consider and address. Since the approach to these varies among institutions, internship and co-op program managers should consult with their institutions’ legal counsel about how to account for these and other laws in the experiential education program.  

Internship and co-op program managers can find information about the legal issues surrounding internships and co-ops on NACEWeb.  

Perhaps most importantly, schools looking to start an experiential education program should know they aren’t alone and they aren’t the first to start up a program.  

“Don’t reinvent the wheel,” Lordan says. “Go find someone else on your campus or in a neighboring institution who is already doing this. They’ve learned what the problems are and how to resolve them—use their experience to your advantage.”