It is a great mark of success for the College of Business at Butler University that it was ranked by Bloomberg Businessweek the 48th best overall business school in the nation, the 12th best in academic quality and the second best in internships.

Perhaps the other colleges would fare as well if they received the same support.

Last week’s edition of The Collegian headlined the COB’s achievement, but it also featured the announcement that the College of Communication is losing its current internship coordinator.

The favoritism has been made clear.

Students in COB are each assigned a career mentor when they are freshmen and an internship coordinator around junior year.

No wonder the college is doing so well if every student receives such individualized attention.

On the other hand, the program directors of CCOM’s six programs are now responsible for seeing that CCOM students find internships along with all of the directors’ other responsibilities.

CCOM is Butler’s newest college; it has not had much time to prove what it can achieve.

Interim Provost Kathryn Morris was quoted in last week’s edition of The Collegian saying that since the issue was about a specific college, the administrators within the college should address it.

However, on the provost’s webpage on butler.edu, the “Academic Initiatives” page reads, “At Butler University we are committed to providing intellectual, cultural, athletic and artistic opportunities and leadership in Indianapolis and the surrounding areas.”

This issue is not just a problem CCOM needs to face.

This is about Butler students getting experience in the professions they are studying.

This is about real life experiences and hands on opportunities.

Gary Beaulieu, director of Internship and Career Services, said that even though CCOM students might have to go look for internships, those students are highly sought after for internships, and the programs out there are outstanding.

Beaulieu also said that networking is the best tool any student can utilize when looking for an internship.

And with social media sites like LinkedIn out there, networking has never been easier for students looking for work.

I do not believe that CCOM will be able to be compared to COB’s success on a national scale when the college says it cannot afford to have an internship coordinator.

However, the temporary loss of CCOM’s internship coordinator does not mean that CCOM students will be running around Fairbanks Center in chaos.

Internships will be found, students will continue to succeed and life will go on.

This story is part of a series evaluating the internship coordinator position in the College of Communication.

Part One | Internships in the spotlight—CCOM position cut

Part Two | Students, Alum Petition CCOM

Part Three | Internship Coordinator’s Contract to Expire

Part Four | Coordinator Seeks Legal Counsel

Jill McCarter | News Editor | jmccarte@butler.edu

Butler University’s College of Communication will not fund the internship coordinator position next year.

Program directors will be responsible for overseeing the students in each of the college’s six programs.

“Internship coordination will revert back to the way that we’ve been doing it since 1975,” CCOM Interim Dean Bill Neher said.

Under the current curriculum, an internship is required of all journalism and strategic communication majors and is recommended for students in the creative media and entertainment program.

The internship coordinator currently oversees these internship experiences of more than 60 creative media and entertainment, journalism and strategic communication students.

The internship program was created more than 20 years ago by Mary Ellen Weitekamp.

Weitekamp worked as a full-time employee of the university for more than 20 years before retiring in July 2009.

Before the college’s creation in 2010, the internship program was housed in the Eugene S. Pulliam School of Journalism.

“In these fields, you can’t get a job without an internship,” Weitekamp said. “And for businesses, you can’t get an intern if you don’t know who to go through. We worked to make sure all the pieces fit.”

As the current internship coordinator, Ed Kanis conducts interviews with interns and with the providers twice each semester and evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the internship and the students, assesses possible sites and maintains a database of the past internship providers.

“I do everything in my power to make sure that students have someone to talk to if a problem comes up,” Kanis said. “It’s important to have someone on your side during an internship.”

Providing students with an opportunity to land the internships they need to successfully land a job is the primary concern for some program directors impacted by the decision to cut the program.

“If an internship site sees that another school’s system is easy to navigate and that there is one person to make sure they can get an intern, they’re going to say, ‘Forget Butler, let’s get an intern from Ball State,’” Nancy Whitmore, journalism program director, said. “We’ll go by the wayside.”

The faculty and staff of the journalism program are on the same page, Whitmore said, and they understand that internships are a critical part of a student’s résumé.

“If the internship program as it stands now goes away, the journalism program will pick up the pieces and start over because the students need it,” Whitmore said. “It would be such a significant burden.”

Kenneth Creech, the creative media and entertainment program director, said the internship coordinator position has been valuable for students in the program.

“We talk about knowledge in action all the time in this college, and this is not encouraging that ideal,” Creech said.

Students in the strategic communication program are required to complete an internship, and Mark Rademacher, an assistant professor, said that students are seeing the value of the internships and are completing two or three before they graduate.

“However the dean decides to structure how it’s done is completely up to the dean, but I think that employers have seen that Butler’s program is so wonderful that they will continue to use our students either way,” Rademacher said.

When Weitekamp held the position, she was also working as an administrative assistant. Her position was funded through the school of journalism.

The position has been funded by the provost for the past three years and not from the college’s fund, Neher said. Neher refused to comment on where Weitekamp’s salary went when she retired.

Interim Provost Kathryn Morris declined to comment, saying that since the issue was about a specific college, the administrators within the college should address it.

Whitmore said that it was her understanding that Morris told Neher to discuss the matter on a collegewide level. Both Whitmore and Creech said that the college has not met to discuss the position’s future.

“I don’t know what discussion we could have,” Neher said.

Neher said that the internship experience for the students would be identical with or without the position.

Senior public relations major Emily Elliott credits the opportunity for her experience at Conrad Indianapolis, Danica Racing and the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association to Kanis and the guidance he’s provided.

“If the administration took the time to realize that this is what is best for students, I have a feeling people would be talking about it,” Elliott said. “But no one seems to have realized that.”

Those at the Indianapolis Convention and Visitors Association, an internship site for many Butler students, think the decision to not fund the position is not in the best interest of students or internship sites.

“Internships are really like training runs for a marathon career,” said Chris Gahl, ICVA vice president of marketing and communications. “It doesn’t seem like that value is realized by everyone at the university.”

The internship experience would most certainly not be the same if Kanis didn’t keep the position, said Bob Schultz, the vice president of Borshoff, a popular internship site for students.

“What you would lose is Butler’s calling card,” Schultz said. “Right now, you have something that sets the university apart from every other school in Indiana, and you are running the risk of losing that.”

The College of Business was recently ranked No. 2 in undergraduate internships by Bloomberg Businessweek, and the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences is trying to make it easier for its undergraduates to gain experiential learning.

Programs differ around the university, but seek the end goal of helping students become more qualified and competitive for jobs when they graduate.

COB students are required to complete two internships before they graduate. Mary Ellen Wolfsie, director of COB’s career development program, said that this requirement helps add to the college’s Businessweek ranking.

Wolfsie said the rankings are valuable in attracting both prospective students and internship sites.

“It at least makes them aware of us, and the employers are more likely to give us a call,” she said.

The COB has a four-year career development program that forces students to look at internships very early. Students are assigned a career mentor their freshman year and an internship coordinator usually during their junior year. The career development office staff also helps with outreach and connecting students to internship opportunities.

Senior marketing major Anna Carie has interned for Finish Line in Indianapolis, Johnson and Johnson in New Jersey and Mindshare Media Agency in London. She said the structure of COB helped her to find internships and decide what she wanted to do.

“Internships are amazing because they are a glimpse into a company,” she said. “You can find the pieces you love and get to the next level.”

Carie will be working for Johnson and Johnson on the East Coast after graduation, and Wolfsie said Carie’s experience is not uncommon. Wolfsie said many companies use internships as a recruiting strategy, and about 45 percent of students end  up working where they intern.  The career development program and the four-year focus on professional work exist to help students    determine where they should intern and eventually work, Wolfsie said.

“It really should be a strategic stepping stone toward what you would ultimately like to do,” she said. “Before, students were frantically taking what came along because they hadn’t been proactive. I don’t think that’s the case anymore.”

Pharmacy students are also required to participate in experiential learning, and the college is trying  this year to make the experience as smooth as possible.

Students are required to complete 300 hours of time in different pharmacy settings, usually after their third and fourth years of school. Trish Devine, the co-director for experiential education in COPHS, said that students used to have to find placements on their own, but this year the college is placing them.

Devine said this makes it much easier for both students— who usually want to fulfill the requirements while home for the summer—and preceptors, the pharmacists overseeing the students.

“Area preceptors were getting bombarded with phone calls, and students were having a difficult time finding them,” she said.

Students don’t interview for placements or fill out applications, and Devine said college staff will make calls for students to try to make connections.

“They were frustrated trying to find a site,” she said. “Even though you give directions on how to make a contact, most of them struggled with that aspect.”

Once placed, students learn something from every experience—whether they liked it or not—and it can lead to other professional opportunities or jobs, Devine said.

“If it wasn’t something I was passionate about or didn’t see a benefit for, I definitely would not be in this role,” she said.

The college has also been piloting software to place sixth-year students in their 10-month-long rotations.

Devine said these rotations are critical to both gaining the knowledge needed to be a pharmacist and starting a new career.

“We tell them to treat every rotation like a job interview,” she said.

In the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Jordan College of Fine Arts, requirements and procedures differ. One program that requires an internship and offers resources to its students in a structured way is the engineering dual degree program.

Jessica McCormick, who is the academic program coordinator for the program, said that the internship requirement for engineering students sets it apart from other engineering programs.

Each student is required to complete an internship while other universities’ programs may encourage but not require them. There are about 150 students in the program, and about 25 to 30 interned last summer.

At the end of their sophomore year, students have a one-hour career development class about how to look for internships, develop résumés and utilize to career fairs. They work with alumni in industry. Students have access to Internship and Career Services here and through IUPUI’s engineering office and  Purdue’s West Lafayette campus.

“The resources are good before they go out, because they know how to present themselves, and we can help them put their best foot forward and help them make the best impression they can,” she said.

Gary Beaulieu, director of ICS, said that whether or not a student’s college has a program like those in COPHS or COB or in a supportive program in other colleges, the ICS office can help them. He said  that while his office works on a “broader basis,” he doesn’t see much difference between working through a collegewide program or working with ICS.

“I think they’re equally as important and equally as good,”  he said.

“Students, regardless of where they are and what major they are in, need to take advantage of all the opportunities presented to them that can help them get to where they want to go.”

ICS helps students prepare their résumés, research areas, network with employers who may have opportunities and practice interview skills. About 1,000 students a year utilize its services.

Beaulieu said the office staff also reach out to alumni and companies in order to create opportunities for all students in what he said is a competitive internship market.

“We’re here to help no matter what direction you want to go in,” he said. “And we have services for every student on campus.”

A common cliché about college is that these are the best years of your life.

It’s true.

It’s not all roses and lemonade. Oh, no. But universities offer students more opportunities than at any other time in their lives.

It’s hard to walk a hundred feet on campus without seeing a sign for a student organization. Every day, students volunteer and take part in service learning, internships and other activities.

Al Carroll, Student Government Association president, said that sometimes Butler University suffers from “over-programming” when multiple events conflict. But he thinks it’s less of a problem than a challenge to be met.

Every day it becomes more and more important that students get involved.

For many students finding a paying job is important, but as The Butler Collegian reported last week, campus jobs can be hard to come by.

But that doesn’t mean students can’t improve their chances at finding a job once they’ve graduated.

Employers aren’t just looking for degrees these days. They want students who are involved, who have developed practical skills and who have learned about themselves.

“Co-curricular activities help students develop transferable skills that employers are really looking for, like communication and team work,” said Caroline Huck-Watson, director of programs for leadership and service education

So, if you can’t find the job you want, if you can’t find a job that pays or accommodates your schedule, give your time away.

Butler has an array of services that students can take advantage of. There are service-learning jobs, internships and just good old-fashioned volunteering.

There are nearly 150 student organizations on campus. Butler has alternative break programs during both fall and spring.

There’s the Volunteer Center, Internship and Career Services Office, the Center for Faith and Vocation, the Office of Student Affairs and much, much more.

Don’t get overwhelmed by the vast number of amazing possibilities available.

Butler’s PulSE office on the south end of Atherton Union offers guidance to students wanting to get involved.

Julie Pakenham, associate director of PuLSE, said that interested students should come into the office, have a one-on-one conversation and get their feet wet. PuLSE is there to help make connections for students.

But it’s not just about padding your resume and piling up a laundry list of activities.

“Students often believe that more is more, and it’s not,” Pakenham said.

Concentrating on a particular area that students have a passion for can mean more in the long term than just adding another line to a resume.

PuLSE tries to work with students to discover their passions and to develop particular skills that they can take with them beyond the university.

That shouldn’t stop students from taking advantage of all the other services they pay for. And these services aren’t just window dressing, weekend warrior stuff.

Some opportunities have the potential to become careers or change lives.

Internships are another important way for students to gain experience for future employment, or for those interested in applying to graduate schools. And the office of Internship and Career Services can help.

Gary Beaulieu, director of career planning and development, suggested that students seeking internships should start early because they are very competitive.

Take it from me. Outside the university, with a full-time job, life becomes complicated fast. And time becomes a diminishing asset. Opportunities to get involved will never be as plentiful or as easily accessed as they are right now.

Now, put down this paper, and go get involved.

For those who do not know me, there are few things I ever like to plan.  I like the spontaneity of things, the mystery.  But there has always been one part of life I have planned—my education.

Why should I plan?  Well, because I know I need to.

In the mass chaos of life, I have mapped out my goals and benchmarks to get to where I want to go.

I know I want to be able to take every opportunity to further my career.  I want to be able to know that I have the experiences and qualities I need to be successful.

That is why I have constantly desired to get an internship, even multiple internships, before I graduate.

When I found out that over the past couple of months that something could eventually mess with my plan, most would understand why I would be a just a little irritated.

So what is fooling with this plan of mine?  It is the debate over unpaid internships—a debate that could potentially lead to control over private businesses in the free market.

According to the New York Times, “the Department of Labor says it is cracking down on firms that fail to pay interns properly.”

This is causing many across the country to ask the question, “Are unpaid internships illegal?”

On the surface, it would seem like a simple answer, but if one looks closer at the major implications, they would realize what forgoing these experiences would leave us with.

In a society where careers ask for experience, one must realize the importance of any type of internship.  Without the practice and knowledge of a career, what company would ever hire anyone?

“Today’s employers will not even look at a student who doesn’t have some type of career experience while in college,” Gary Beaulieu, director of internship and career services at Butler, said.

Beaulieu is right.  I know students just graduating from college from my hometown of Columbus, Ohio that have excellent degrees from excellent universitiesbut they have no job lined up.

Why on earth would this happen to such intelligent students?  It is because they did not get the internship experience to take them to the level an employer needs.

Our classroom learning can only take us so far.

So instead of graduating college with a job, these graduates are trying to complete an internship that will finally make them look good on paper to an employer.

That is not my ideal situation.

I know it is life and my plan might not be perfect, but why not be prepared?  Why not take any kind of internship and be able to have a career in the future?

In a time of economic unrest, when some businesses do not have the money to give out, why should we be complaining?

We are getting valuable experience that could make us money in the future.

“An unpaid experience is absolutely worth it,” Beaulieu said.  “An internship (or other career related experience) should be more about the experience and networking rather than about making money.”

Of course, if I was offered a paid internship over an unpaid internship, I would much rather be paid.

But, if I was stuck with one option, I would want to have the experience, to have something to talk about in an interview.  I would want to be able to prove I was worthy of a job.

“I know that many students would like the pay, even if it is small, but students should think about gaining the experience of being in the professional world,” Beaulieu said.

So let’s review: we get rid of internships, we get rid of experience, but that is not the worst of it.

The main implication could cause what our country has prided itself in—our free market—to start to disintegrate before our very eyes.

If we were to take steps in the direction of this enforcement, the government would essentially interfere with what employers have the right to do, eventually cutting our options for experience in the future.

Not only would this cut our internship options, but this government intervention will only lead to more problems and more control, which will eventually hurt our generation the most.

Jeffery Tucker, editor of mises.org, said “who loses if this crackdown succeeds? The same groups that are winning under the present increase in internships: young people and their employers and would-be employers. “

So if we lose, who wins?

The government does.  They win by taking over our right to private entities, our freedom to control our own businesses.

This increase in government interference seems even more unbearable than working for a free, helpful experience.

With this brewing storm of legal woes, it is something that should be called to the attention of all college students.

Maybe we should get the valuable experience of an internship before the government gets any bigger.

So, next summer, I’ll be applying for as many internships as possible, whether paid or not.