UMD students gain experience through Experiential Learning Program

UMass Dartmouth students interning through the Washington Center may have viewed the Thomas Jefferson Memorial during their semester or summer in Washington, D.C.

By Leah Sylvia

“I came here in the hopes that I would learn a lot and make connections to get a good job,” said Kelly Lehane, a senior in Human Resource Management last spring. She interned for the U.S. Department of Treasury as the Events Planning Assistant.

Lehane is one of the few to take advantage of The Washington Center’s internship program that places university students within various agencies in the Washington D.C. area. The program offers students real world experience in their chosen field accompanied by academic courses and conference meetings where they meet CEO’s and other leaders of organizations.

“I think that this internship has given me a great experience to see how the business world is. I learned to communicate with all sorts of people,” she said. Lehane hoped to find a job right out of college before going to grad school. She feels her internship will be very helpful. “I would love to get a job with the government…ultimately, I hope that my supervisor can help me find a job or point me in a certain direction,” explained Lehane.

Internships have proven to serve more than just educational purposes. They are a great way to build up a resume, make connections after graduation, and establish impressive job experience are some of the benefits listed by the Career Resource Center.

“My experience in Washington was an opportunity of a lifetime,” says Melissa Melloni, a 2003 UMass Dartmouth grad and alumni of The Washington Center program. Melloni’s experience has continued to open doors for her after hitting the job market. She recalls, “When I presented my portfolio I did in Washington to my present boss, he hired me in a few days and waited a few weeks for me to be available. He said he would rather hire someone [who has] experience than someone who did not.”

Melloni needed an internship to solidify her major for a multidisciplinary degree in Forensic Science. Not all departments require internships, though they come highly recommended by faculty and staff.

“An internship is essential to the college experience. Students should do more than one,” declared the associate director of the Career Resource Center, Robbin Roy, who speaks highly of The Washington Center program.

It is an excellent program for students who can move to D.C. for a semester, but there are plenty of internships to be had in the area around campus for those that cannot.

Roy estimated that about 150-200 students each year participate in The Experiential Learning Program which is available through the Career Resource Center. It permits students to go out and find an employer to intern with and a faculty sponsor to supervise their internship. Requirements of the course are left to the faculty sponsor and classroom time isn’t mandatory. Daily work logs and a final paper are the normal requirements of internships through the Experiential Learning Program. However, a new course has been added by the Charlton College of Business to coordinate internships with in-class learning. It requires interns to complete 15 hours of class time in addition to 135 hours in the field.

Michael Griffin, Assistant Dean of Charlton Business College and Charlton College of Business Internship Director, said the new policies seemed to have curtailed student involvement. He said that the original internship program for business majors garnered roughly 60-70 students per semester, but since the recent changes only about 25-30 participate. Unlike the traditional experiential learning program, the new course requires interns to complete assignments and presentations for the classroom aspect of the course as well as work journals and a final paper. Griffin hopes by next year to have more students take advantage of the course as they realize its benefits and that the program is not as hard as it looks.

“There’s a high demand for internships in the area,” not just from employers, but “the students really want it,” says Griffin.

There are several firms that the program can depend on to accept interns and some employers even seek out interns. The program is still struggling to even out the opportunities offered to each category within the business major: financing, marketing, accounting, management, and management information systems.

Griffin is continually looking for new sites for his interns, “I need to find more opportunities for them.” He welcomes students to aid with researching prospective employers and bringing them into the program. Griffin mentioned that he plans to do a mass mailing to employers who might be interested in taking on interns to let them know the benefits and responsibilities of being a sponsor.

Not all organizations, however, are able or willing to pay their interns. Griffin has been pushing employers for paid internships to make the program more practical for students who must sacrifice valuable work time to complete the course. There are several companies that do offer their interns pay and predictably he said students will gravitate toward those. Even if the internship is not paid, students will earn credit while gaining the invaluable advantage of experience in their field.

“I do believe if I did not have the experience in Washington then I would not have gotten my job at the genetics center because I would not have had any lab experience,” says Melloni, who now works at the Greenwood Genetic Center in South Carolina isolating DNA and testing it for Cystic Fibrosis. “I still talk about my experiences in Washington and I would have to say it was my best summer ever.”

UMass Dartmouth students have the entire staff of the Career Resource Center waiting to help them find what they need in order to “take a chance and do an internship,” says Roy.

Children’s Center for Learning is an asset at UMD

By Katie Bresnahan

“We are a service based center on campus and we help the parents, faculty, staff, alumni and also community members to utilize the center so that their children are getting an education and they, in turn, are also able to work and pursue their education,” according to Diane Sansoucy, director of the UMass Dartmouth Children’s Center for Learning.

At the CCL, children learn to read early on, they socialize with other children, they have art and music opportunities, they use computers and they learn science and math. Sansoucy says that all of these subjects are age appropriate for the children.

Sometimes the children who attend the Learning Center go onto the main campus to view different departments. They have gone to the Frederick Douglas Unity House, where story hours are put on for the children. They have also gone to the library where librarians have read seasonal stories. Officers from the Department of Public Safety have gone to the center to teach the children about Halloween safety. The children have also taken Spanish lessons this semester and next semester they will get French lessons. One parent comes in sometimes to teach the children yoga.

The Children’s Center for Learning has a preschool curriculum for children ages two years and nine months to six years. Each month the center sends a calendar to parents, letting them know what their children will learn about that month.

Sansoucy says, “Right now there aren’t any services for infants or toddlers on campus, here at this center. The Center for Policy Analysis did a survey this summer that looked into the feasibility of our having more children on this campus who need to be served if they were infants and toddlers. And it was found that there is a need in Southeastern Massachusetts for more infant and toddler spots to be available.”

She hopes that in the future the center will be able to accommodate for children who are not of preschool age. She hopes that either a new center will be built or the current one can be renovated to meet the needs of younger children. Sansoucy did mention that a plan was made for this kind of a center back in 1987, but it did not get the necessary funding. Sansoucy has put in a request to the Department of Student Affairs, but still does not know when or if the new center will become a reality.

“The mission of the university is to link the community to the university to help boost economic development. By doing that, by having us on campus, I think we fit very well into the mission,” says Sansoucy.

This semester 28 children are enrolled in the Children’s Center for Learning and Sansoucy says they are expecting more next semester. They are licensed to hold 30 children at a time.

Not only is the Children’s Center for learning beneficial to parents and their children, says Sansoucy, but it is also a site for several work-study students. Each year the center employs around 16 students.

Sansoucy says that the CCL’s entire staff is comprised of well-educated teachers. The CCL is located on the first floor in Elmwood Hall.

State of the Queer Nation comes to UMass Dartmouth

By Melanie Correia

What is State of the Queer Nation? State of the Queer Nation is the newest queer radio show here on WUMD, UMass Dartmouth’s radio station.

Beginning only this September, State of the Queer Nation is doing wondrous things for the UMass Dartmouth campus and the surrounding area.

To put it simply, State of the Queer Nation reports on the state of the queer nation. It is an hour long segment focused on queer news, discussion and musicians. The show airs every Monday morning from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. and Thursday evening from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. on WUMD North Dartmouth. WUMD, Umass Dartmouth’s radio station, airs on 89.3 FM and anyone can catch it live on www.893wumd.org.

This radio show is in conjunction with the UMass Dartmouth Pride Alliance. As a GLBT group, the Pride Alliance raises awareness on campus about queer issues. State of the Queer Nation is taking this to a new level, one that not only reaches those on campus but includes a wide audience outside of the UMD community (WUMD has been known to reach all the way up to Boston and as far as some parts of Connecticut).

State of the Queer Nation is proudly brought to you by three UMD students. Adam Lawrence is a senior English/Writing major and first-year co-chair of the Pride Alliance. Lawrence essentially began State of the Queer Nation and uses his own recording equipment for the show. Mark Herber, your second host, is a senior History major. Mark is also co-chair of the Pride Alliance alongside Adam. This is his second year as co-chair. Finally, your last host is Melanie Correia a sophomore English/Writing major and first-year secretary of the Pride Alliance.

Each host brings something different to the show, allowing it to be very diverse. Adam, being the oldest of the three, has a lot of life-experience and is not afraid to express his opinions. Mark has a colorful background and knows a lot about the queer community. Melanie, with only a year of college under her belt, represents the young, female ally. The three hosts often get into long conversations sparked by the newest news story, speaking of the repercussions of the story, what it means to the GLBT community at large and how it affects us here on campus.

Each show is broken up roughly in half. During the first half the hosts introduce themselves, the show and what the show is about. They have about six to seven news stories within the hour, breaking them up to about three each half. The stories range from a number of different things in the queer community. The hosts include broad topics (like the ENDA—Employment Non-Discrimination Act for gays, lesbians and bisexuals in the workforce, recently passed by the United States House of Representatives) to smaller stories (one recently being a story about how a college football quarterback got suspended from the team and charged a $600 fine for using an anti-gay slur to a classmate).

In between each news story the hosts play music from artists in the GLBT or queer community. Some favorites are Grizzly Bear, Tegan and Sara, Tori Amos, Placebo, Scissor Sisters and more main-stream artists such as Queen, Melissa Etheridge and Janis Joplin.

During each episode, the three co-hosts have a PSA segment, usually within the first half-hour. The PSA’s usually involve an event (like National Coming Out Day or World Aids Day), a safe-sex skit and a mention of PFLAG.

Usually right in the middle of the show they have a segment called the Ruffie Cocktail. The Ruffie Cocktail is a segment highlighting the talents of famous gay singer/songwriter, Rufus Wainwright. This segment plays two of his songs with a bulletin board segment in the middle usually promoting Pride Alliance meetings (which are held every Monday at 5 p.m. in the Libreral Arts Building, also known as Group I, Rm 110). After the Ruffie Cocktail, the three finish up with their news stories, discussions and a couple more tunes.

They finish each show with a disclaimer. Even though State of the Queer Nation is proudly a part of the WUMD radio station and a part of the UMass Dartmouth community, the views expressed on the show are those of the three hosts.

So, regardless of your race, gender or sexual orientation, State of the Queer Nation has something for you. Don’t forget to tune into to 89.3 FM or www.893wumd.org every Monday at 8 a.m. or Thursday at 6 p.m. to listen.

To get in contact with any of the hosts or to find out information regarding State of the Queer Nation you can email them directly at stateofthequeernation@gmail.com.