Coordinator of experiential education at the Olinde Career Center Kayla Lato Kucharchuk said the current policy statement on internships for University credit is vague and out of date. Kucharchuk presented a draft of the revised policy statement to the LSU Faculty Senate on Wednesday, which voted to table a proposal to adopt the revisions for further review.
The policy statement was last revised in 1976, and has no definition of an internship, co-op, practicum or experiential education, Kucharchuk said.
The lack of definitions and lack of connection between departments makes it difficult for the University as a whole to coordinate internship programs, she said.
Kucharchuk said the proposed policy statement defines all of those terms and works to build bridges between different departments.
A major change to the policy is the establishment of a credit value for work done by students at their internships, Kucharchuk said. The revised policy statement sets a guideline of awarding one hour of course credit for every 45 hours of work per semester.
The current policy leaves internship opportunities isolated to the particular department or instructor offering it, Kucharchuk said. There is no central database of where students are interning, which creates a few issues, she said.
One issue with the lack of knowledge about where students intern is liability, Kucharchuk said. There’s a safety issue if something happens to a student while at an internship and the University doesn’t know where they are, she said.
Another potential problem comes with providing information for university rankings. Kucharchuk gave the example of U.S. News and World Report calling about the number of students in internships. She said it might take the University a week or two to get back to them because of the lack of centralization.
The Faculty Senate raised a number of concerns at the Wednesday meeting, including worries about international internships. Kucharchuk said PS 38 would apply to all internships, but the guidelines allow for departmental and instructor flexibility. She gave the example of a student earning foreign language credit all day while in another country.