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"Professor, do you have any advice for my coop interview at the hospital?" said the student preparing to leave for an interview that he hoped would be the start of a career in purchasing. "Yes," the professor replied. "Lose that earring. This hospital is very conversative and once they see that earring, your career as a purchasing intern will be over before it starts." The student did manage to lose the earring that day, had his interview, was accepted by the hospital, and experienced a successful cooperative education at Robert Morris College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The student gained professional experience and credit in his major, the hospital gained an excellent intern, and the college received tuition money and favorable image enhancement by the quality work of the intern. Synergy!
The idea of colleges and businesses coming together through cooperative education programs is neither new nor limited to any one region of the country. Cooperative education programs have been recorded as early as the 1906 program at the University of Cincinnati. These internships developed from the idea of cooperative education programs whose primary function was to enable students in professional programs to finance their education. Their growth benefited from models used in the field of education where practice teaching is a requirement for certification. Multiple studies point out that internships are possible in almost any discipline.l While internship programs are available on over 1,000 college and university campuses, we believe that these programs have not begun to reach their full potential in terms of serving students and the private and public sectors. An informal survey of employers, academicians and students identified the following barriers to success:
1. Internships are electives in most business
programs.2
2. Interns perceive that they have paid for the privilege of doing "gopher," dead-end work.
3. Faculty do not consider internships part of the educational program.
4. Employers do not view internships as mentoring opportunities.
5. There can be unequal commitments and expectations among the various parties involved.
Through quality initiatives and continuous improvement and refinement, the management faculty at Robert Morris College have identified several strategies for removing some of these barriers and are seeking to implement these strategies.
In our view it is necessary to constructively question the current value...