Revised Elective Internship Policy

29 Jan 2018 18:13
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Please review the following language for the latest draft of the "Elective Internship Policy," last edited on 1.29.18. Previous comments on the old version can be found here: http://usao-appc.wikidot.com/blog:30

Draft 6 – JANUARY 29, 2018

ELECTIVE INTERNSHIP POLICY

Scope

This policy addresses the academic requirements of elective internships. Please contact Student Services for a policies relating to non-academic aspects of internships. Please contact advisers for polices related to non-elective internships.

Student Eligibility

1. Only Students in good academic standing may apply for an elective internship. A cumulative grade point average of at least 2.7 is preferred, but the final decision rests with the individual academic department. Required internships must meet program guidelines.
2. Students who participate in an elective internship should have junior or senior status; however, departments may make exceptions for individual cases.
3. Faculty are encouraged to only recommend students who would be excellent representatives of USAO for elective internships.

Academic Credit

1. A maximum of 12 trimester hours of elective internship credit may be counted toward degree requirements at USAO.
2. Students are able to receive academic credit for elective internships completed during any trimester.
3. At least thirty (30) hours of internship or internship-related activities are required for one credit hour. Advisors should caution students against enrolling in a heavy course load plus an internship.

Financial Considerations

1. Students participating in the USAO elective internship program will be charged tuition for the amount of hours associated with the internship. If students are eligible for financial aid, their aid will be applied to internship hours as well as hours attempted in traditional courses.
2. Any extra travel or work-related expenses are the student’s responsibility. Some student interns may be paid a salary or stipend by their host organizations; other internships are unpaid.

Timeline

1. Students should begin exploring internship placements no later than one trimester preceding their intended internship (note: some competitive internships have application deadlines six to eight months prior to the start of the internship).
2. Students should select their faculty supervisor one trimester prior to the internship to allow time for preliminary planning and paperwork.
3. It is strongly recommended that the faculty supervisor and work-site supervisor complete a midterm check to assure that the internship is proceeding as planned.
4. All deadlines for the completion of work outlined in the learning contract will be established by the faculty supervisor.

Comments: 2

Response to J.C.'s comments

Kate Sekula 12 Feb 2018 17:52

In response to your comments on Academic Credit: The language is "at least 30 hours of internship or internship-related activities." I think that language covers your situation for shadowing, especially since you indicated that pre-med shadowing requires assignments outside of the actual shadowing. If we create a learning contract to use, we could easily put in a place for the faculty supervisor to explain how those 30 hours are met.

In response to financial considerations: I think you are overthinking this. The language is broad on purpose. If this type of situation arises, it is a government issue and not in our control. I think having the learning contract and having the internship adviser detail how the work will be completed and assessed will go a long way towards making the experience equal (especially if the people evaluating the internship contract are sensitive to these issues).

In response to your comments on the Timeline: Creating a learning contract is a good idea and I will start work on this. This policy is only in regard to internships that are not part of a degree program or aren't in the catalog. (So it doesn't pertain to communications, theater, political science, and sociology). Those internship requirements are up to the department that offers them.

ELECTIVE INTERNSHIP POLICY comments

JC Sanders 04 Feb 2018 20:01

Overall, these look good. A couple of points to consider or clarify:

- In Academic Credit, it appears the standard is 30 hrs per credit hour. This seems reasonable and is slightly more than double the 800 minutes (13.3 hours) per credit hour of in-class instruction that is the current guideline for courses (this makes sense since courses require additional work outside of class that some internships may not (though some may). However, how does this compare with independent study? In the past, we have used 100 hours as the guideline for shadowing (pre-med) doctors. This would only be 20 hrs per credit hour. However, for independent study shadowing, the students also have other assignments to complete in addition to simply shadowing, so it may not be an apples to apples comparison. My question is should we adopt a higher number for independent study or are these different situations (and can we justify why they are different)?

- In financial considerations #2, the part about students being paid may be a bit broad. Clearly there are legitimate internships that should count for academic credit and students should also be paid (e.g. REUs) as a standard practice. However, there is a fine line here and whether or not the student is paid should be carefully considered in whether or not academic credit should be awarded. Students should not receive academic credit simply for working for an organization or company. I do not think this has been a significant problem in the past, but some sort of statement noting the balance here is important. I believe there have been experiential internships (e.g. helping with youth activities under experienced mentors) for academic credit where the stipulation for academic credit was that the student would NOT be paid. Also, being paid may create problems for international students as student visas may prohibit certain types of financial compensation. This is NOT a reason to ban students being paid for internships, but it should be considered. Could a situation arise where a domestic and international student have the same internship and one is paid while the other is not?

- In Timeline #4, it mentions a "learning contract". Can we specify what this is and what it needs to contain? In some departments, there is no specific "internship" course, so all internships would be special topics, tutorial, or something else. In the case of a tutorial or individual independent studies, we have established policies that ensure the internship is clearly documented (what is to be done, deadlines, how many hours, etc.). However, in the case of internship specific courses, I am not sure what documentation is produced. Is a syllabus/learning contract created for every student? If not, this needs to be addressed. We could easily define what is included in the learning contract (or similar documentation for the other areas) to ensure all internships have clear goals and requirements.

Minor typos/suggested edits:
- Under Student Eligibility #1, "Students" should be "students" (not capitalized).
- Under Timeline #3, "work-site supervisor" should be "internship-site supervisor" as not all internships may be places of business.

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