Internships Across Disciplines
Thursday
4:00pm - 4:30pm
Brighton 1/2
Oral Presentation
Jennifer Menon Parker, Johnson County Community College
The original vision of this project was to research how to help a dysfunctional biotechnology internship. In trying to discover a better methodology for one program, a conversation evolved regarding the need to revamp and streamline multiple internships across campus independent of the specificities of curriculum.
There are now the beginnings of an evolution into an interdisciplinary collaboration of ideas and goals geared toward a potential transformation in the way Johnson County Community College does internships across campus. This proposed transformation would be independent of curriculum design and the intellectual freedom expressed by individual faculty involved in said internships. It would, instead, focus on the commonalities shared amongst internships such as: student soft skills (resume and cover letter writing, attire for an interview, time management), student internship employer research of mission statement and culture, and student goals (both midterm and final).
Several key components came out of the discussion including: the value of student contextualized learning with an emphasis on global understanding of multicultural mentalities, how to reach the online population possibly with a standardized orientation video posted to the JCCC website and website revitalization similar to Maricopa Community College, and to focus on what individual(s) in administration that this message needs to reach.
Other issues discussed were the legal ramifications associated with documentation filed with both the college and corporate partners and documentation delivery. Linda Dubar, with employment relations, the internship coordinator, also shared her role as a faculty facilitator by introducing both the students and the corporate entities to the concepts of: job shadowing, internships, and workplace transitioning.
This summary was then shared with other interested chairs, to encourage additional collegial collaboration. Additionally, a request was made to offer a session during the January professional development days so that other interested faculty could engage in the conversation face-to-face.
There are now the beginnings of an evolution into an interdisciplinary collaboration of ideas and goals geared toward a potential transformation in the way Johnson County Community College does internships across campus. This proposed transformation would be independent of curriculum design and the intellectual freedom expressed by individual faculty involved in said internships. It would, instead, focus on the commonalities shared amongst internships such as: student soft skills (resume and cover letter writing, attire for an interview, time management), student internship employer research of mission statement and culture, and student goals (both midterm and final).
Several key components came out of the discussion including: the value of student contextualized learning with an emphasis on global understanding of multicultural mentalities, how to reach the online population possibly with a standardized orientation video posted to the JCCC website and website revitalization similar to Maricopa Community College, and to focus on what individual(s) in administration that this message needs to reach.
Other issues discussed were the legal ramifications associated with documentation filed with both the college and corporate partners and documentation delivery. Linda Dubar, with employment relations, the internship coordinator, also shared her role as a faculty facilitator by introducing both the students and the corporate entities to the concepts of: job shadowing, internships, and workplace transitioning.
This summary was then shared with other interested chairs, to encourage additional collegial collaboration. Additionally, a request was made to offer a session during the January professional development days so that other interested faculty could engage in the conversation face-to-face.